And he almost beat him. During their short struggle, Berthe had made off in her chemise by the door which had remained wide open; she fancied she beheld a kitchen knife in her husband’s bleeding fist, and she seemed to feel the cold steel between her shoulders. As she rushed along the dark passage, she thought she heard the sound of blows, without being able to make out who had dealt them, or who received them. Voices, which she no longer recognized, were saying:
“I am at your service whenever you please.”
“Very well, you will hear from me.”
With a bound she gained the servants’ staircase. But when she had rushed down the two flights, as though there had been the flames of a conflagration behind her, she found the kitchen door locked, and remembered she had left the key up-stairs in the pocket of her dressing-gown. Moreover, there was no lamp; not the least glimmer of a light beneath the door; it was evidently the servant who had sold them. Without stopping to take breath, she tore up-stairs again, passing once more before the passage leading to Octave’s room, where the two men’s voices still continued in violent altercation.
They were going on abusing each other; she would have time, perhaps. And she rapidly descended the grand staircase, with the hope that her husband had left their outer door open. She would bolt herself in her room, and open to nobody. But there, for the second time, she encountered a locked door. Then, shut out from her home, with scarcely a covering to her body, she lost her head, and scampered from floor to floor, like some hunted animal which knows not where to take earth. She would never have the courage to knock at her parents’ door. At one moment she thought of taking refuge with the doorkeepers, but shame drove her up-stairs again. She listened, raised her head, bent over the hand-rail, her ears deafened by the beating of her heart in the profound silence, her eyes blinded by lights which seemed to shoot out from the dense obscurity. And it was always the knife, the knife in Auguste’s bleeding fist, the icy cold point of which was about to pierce her. Suddenly there was a noise; she fancied he was coming, and she shivered to her very marrow; and, as she was opposite Campardons’ door, she rang desperately, furiously, almost breaking the bell.
“Good heavens! is the house on fire?” asked an agitated voice inside.
The door opened at once. It was Lisa, who was only then leaving mademoiselle, walking softly, and with a candlestick in her hand. The mad ringing of the bell had made her start, just as she was crossing the ante-room. When she caught sight of Berthe in her chemise, she stood rooted to the spot.
“What’s the matter?” asked she.
The young woman had entered, violently slamming the door behind her; and, panting and leaning against the wall, she stammered out: