"Why?"
"I don't know! She is so charming ... delicious...."
"Indeed...."
In the following week we invited some of our Paris friends, artists, without scruples or prejudices, and their wives.
The men came, but alone; the wives sent apologies, so transparent that they amounted to insults.
Dinner degenerated into perfect orgy. The scandalous conduct of the men revolted me.
They treated Marie's two friends as if they were prostitutes, and when every one was more or less intoxicated I saw one of the officers present repeatedly kissing my wife.
I waved my billiard cue above their heads and demanded an explanation.
"He's a friend of my childhood, a relative! Don't make yourself a laughing-stock, you silly!" replied Marie.
"Moreover, it is a Russian custom to kiss in public, and we are Russian subjects."