Disarmed by the majesty of motherhood, I entered her room with uncertain steps, timid as a schoolboy.
"Ah! You are up already, my dear," she greeted me, surprised, but not as pleased as one might have expected.
I stammered a confused reply, smothered by the children, who had climbed on my back when I stooped to kiss their mother.
Was it possible? Could she really be a criminal? I pondered the question as I went away, subdued by her chaste beauty, the candid smile of those lips which could surely never have been tainted by a lie. No, a thousand times no!...
I stole away, convinced of the contrary.
And yet doubt remained, doubt of everything: of my wife's constancy, my children's legitimate birth, my sanity; doubt which persecuted me, relentlessly and unremittingly.
It was time to make an end, to arrest the flood of sterile thoughts. If only I could have absolute certainty! A crime had been committed in secret, or else I was mad! I must know the truth!
To be a deceived husband! What did I care, as long as I knew it! I should be the first to laugh at it. Was there a single man in the world who could be absolutely certain that he was his wife's only lover?...
When I thought of the friends of my youth, now married, I could not pick out one who was not, to some extent, hoodwinked. Lucky men whom no doubts tortured! It was silly to be small-minded. Whether one is the only one, or whether one has a rival, what does it matter? The ridicule lies in the fact of not knowing it; the main thing is to know all about it.
Yet if a man were married for a hundred years he would still know nothing of the true nature of his wife. However deep his knowledge of humanity, of the whole cosmos, he would never fathom the woman whose life is bound up with his own life. For this reason the story of poor Monsieur Bovary is such pleasant reading for all happy husbands....