I went. The Baron accompanied me through the drawing-room, but, quick though he was, he could not prevent me from catching sight of a woman's skirt disappearing through one of the other doors.
This awakened the suspicion in me that the whole had been a farce.
The Baron closed the door behind me with a bang which echoed through the staircase, and gave me the impression that I had been kicked out.
I felt sure that I had not been mistaken. I had assisted at the dénoûment of a sentimental play with a double plot.
This mysterious illness, what was it? Hysteria? No. Science has given it the name of "nymphomania"; freely translated it means, the desire of a woman for children, moderated and disguised by time and the conventions, but suddenly breaking out with irresistible force.
This woman, always living in a state of semi-celibacy, unwilling to take upon herself the burden of motherhood, and yet dissatisfied with the incompleteness of her married life, was driven into the arms of a lover, to the commission of a crime, and, at the very moment when she thought that her lover was incontestably hers, he slipped through her fingers, and he, too, left her unsatisfied.
How miserable a mistake was matrimony! How pitiful a passion was love!
When I had finished my analysis I had come to the conclusion that the unsatisfactory nature of their relationship had driven both husband and wife to seek happiness elsewhere. The disappointment at my flight had brought the Baroness back into the arms of her husband, whose love had received a fresh stimulus, and who would henceforth strive to make her more happy.
They were reconciled, and everything was at an end.
Exit the devil.