"Yes, he'll stop at nothing," I said, unconsciously participating in his indignation.
"He's like all those low-born men who follow their base instincts. If they raise their station in life, they become insufferable. His face is a clear indication that nothing good can come out of all this."
"It hits you in the face. I believe you."
"I'll explain it to you in a nutshell. The countess is an excellent woman, angelic, as discreet as she is beautiful and deserving of something far better. But she is married to a man who does not understand the value of the treasure he possesses and he spends his life given over to gambling and to all sorts of illicit pastimes. She in the meantime gets bored and cries. Is it surprising that she tries to dull her pain honestly, here and there, wherever a piano is being played? Moreover I myself give her this advice and say it loud and clear: Madam, seek diversion. Life's too short. The count in the end will have to repent of his follies and your sufferings will then be over. It seems to me I'm right."
"No doubt about it," I replied off the cuff, although, in my heart of hearts, as indifferent as I had been to begin with to the sundry misfortunes of the countess. "But that's not the worst of it," Cascajares added, striking the floor with his stick, "for now the count, in the prime of life, has started to be jealous, yes, of a certain young man who has taken to heart the enterprise of helping the countess to enjoy herself."
"The husband will be to blame if he succeeds."
"None of that would matter as the countess is virtue incarnate; none of that would matter, I say, if there was not a terrible man whom I suspect of being about to cause a disaster in that house."
"Really? And who is he, this man?" I asked with a spark of curiosity.
"A former butler, well-liked by the count, who has set himself to make a martyr of the countess as unhappy as she is sensitive. It seems that he is now in possession of a certain secret which could compromise her, and with this weapon he presumes to do God knows what. It's infamous!"
"It certainly is and he merits an exemplary punishment," I said, discharging in turn the weight of my wrath on that man.