Remember this, my brothers, if ever you are deceived by a woman!
But she had no intention of foregoing her revenge. A few days after this incident she came into my room, began telling me a long, rambling story, and after endless digressions gave me to understand that she had once, only once, been violated; it had happened, she said, while on her theatrical tour in Finland.
It was true, then!
She implored me not to think that it had happened more than once; not to suspect her of having had a lover. That meant several times, several lovers.
"Then it is true that you have deceived me, and in order to deceive the world, too, you have invented the myth of my insanity. To hide your crime more completely you meant to torture me to death. You are a criminal. I have no longer any doubt of it. I shall divorce you!"
She threw herself on her knees, weeping bitterly, and asking me to forgive her.
"I'll forgive you; nevertheless our marriage must be annulled."
On the following day she was very quiet; on the second day she had regained her former self-possession; on the third she behaved in every respect like an innocent woman.
Since she had confessed herself, she was more than innocent; she was a martyr who treated me with insulting condescension.