M. and Mme. Mauperin were in their bed-room. The clock had just struck midnight, gravely and slowly, as though to emphasize the solemnity of that confidential and conjugal moment which is both the tête-à-tête of wedded life and the secret council of the household—that moment of transformation and magic which is both bourgeois and diabolic, and which reminds one of that story of the woman metamorphosed into a cat. The shadow of the bed falls mysteriously over the wife, and as she lies down there is a sort of charm about her. Something of the bewitchments of a mistress come to her at this instant. Her will seems to be roused there by the side of the marital will which is dormant. She sits up, scolds, sulks, teases, struggles. She has caresses and scratches for the man. The pillow confers on her its force, her strength comes to her with the night.
Mme. Mauperin was putting her hair in papers in front of the glass, which was lighted by a single candle. She was in her skirt and dressing-jacket. Her stout figure, above which her little arms kept moving as if she were crowning herself, threw on the wall a fantastic outline of a woman of fifty in deshabille, and on the paper at the end of the room could be seen wavering about one of those corpulent shadows which one could imagine Hoffman and Daumier sketching from the back of the beds of old married couples. M. Mauperin was already lying down.
"Louis!" said Mme. Mauperin.
"Well?" answered M. Mauperin, with that accent of indifference, regret, and weariness of a man who, with his eyes still open, is beginning to enjoy the delight of the horizontal position.
"Oh, if you are asleep——"
"I am not asleep. What is it?"
"Oh, nothing. I think Renée behaved most improperly this evening; that's all. Did you notice?"
"No, I wasn't paying any attention."
"It's just a whim. There isn't the least reason in it. Hasn't she said anything to you? Do you know anything? I'm nowhere—with all your mysteries and secrets. I'm always the last to know about things. It's quite different with you—you are told everything. It's very fortunate that I was not born jealous, don't you think so?"
M. Mauperin pulled the sheet up over his shoulder without answering.