Presently the Baroness returned with her little girl, and began to put her to bed in her small iron cot. But the little one refused to be undressed, and began to scream. After a few futile attempts to calm her, her mother threatened her with the rod.
I cannot bear to see a child being punished without losing my temper. I remembered on one such occasion raising my hand against my own father. I allowed my anger to get the better of me, and interfered.
"Allow me," I said ... "but do you think that a child cries without a reason?"
"She's naughty."
"Then there's some cause for it. Perhaps she's sleepy, and our presence and the lamplight irritate her."
She agreed, taken aback, and, perhaps, conscious that her shrewish conduct had produced an unfavourable impression on me.
This glimpse of her home life cured me for some weeks of my love, and I must confess that the scene with the rod had contributed more than anything else to my disillusion.
The autumn dragged on monotonously and Christmas drew near. The arrival of a newly-married couple from Finland, friends of the Baroness, brought a little more life in our relationship, which had lost much of its charm. Thanks to the Baroness, I received numerous invitations, and presented myself in evening dress at suppers, dinners and occasionally even at a dance.
While moving in this, her world, which in my opinion lacked dignity, I could not help noticing that the Baroness, under cover of an exaggerated candour, paid a great deal of attention to the young men, watching me furtively all the while, however, to see the effect of her conduct on me. Irritated and disgusted by her brazen flirtations, which I considered bad form, I responded by a callouse indifference. It hurt me that the woman whom I adored should behave like a vulgar coquette.
She always seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, and prolonged the parties till the small hours of the morning; I became the more and more convinced that she was discontented and bored with her home life; that her longing for an artistic career was dictated by a petty vanity, a desire to be seen and enjoy herself. Vivacious, full of exuberant spirits, of a restless disposition, she possessed the art to shine; she was always the centre of a crowd, more in consequence of a certain gift to attract people than because of her natural charms. Her great vitality, her nervous excitability, compelled the most refractory to listen to her, to pay homage to her. And I also noticed that as soon as her nervous force was exhausted, the spell was broken, and she was left sitting alone and unnoticed in a quiet corner. Ambitious, yearning for power, perhaps heartless, she took care that the men paid her every attention; the society of women had no attraction for her.