"Scarce had we passed the gates of Trezene,
He on his chariot mounted—"
But while the old fellow spoke, Renée neither looked nor listened any more. The light blinded her, and stifling heat came to her from all the pale faces stretched out towards the stage. The monologue continued, interminable. She imagined herself in the conservatory under the ardent foliage, and she dreamt that her husband came in and surprised her in the arms of his son. She suffered horribly, she was losing consciousness, when the death-rattle of Phædra, repentant and dying in the convulsions caused by the poison, made her open her eyes again. The curtain fell. Would she have the strength to poison herself some day? How petty and shameful her drama was beside the ancient epopœia! And while Maxime fastened her opera cloak under her chin, she still heard, growling behind her, Ristori's rough voice to which Œnone's complacent murmur replied.
In the brougham, the young fellow talked on alone. He considered tragedies sickening as a rule, and preferred the pieces performed at the Bouffes. However, Phèdre was spicy. He had taken an interest in it, because—And he pressed Renée's hand to complete his meaning. Then a funny idea darted through his head, and he gave way to an impulse to say something witty.
"It was I," he murmured, "who did right not to approach the sea at Trouville."
Renée, lost in the depths of her painful dream, remained silent. It was necessary for him to repeat his phrase.
"Why?" asked she, astonished and failing to understand.
"But the monster—"
And he gave vent to a little titter. This joke froze the young woman. Everything was upset in her head. Ristori was no longer aught, but a big puppet who tucked up her peplum and poked out her tongue to the public like Blanche Müller in the third act of the Belle Hélène; Theramene danced the cancan, and Hippolytos eat bread and jam while stuffing his fingers into his nose.
When a more galling remorse made Renée shudder, she evinced superb revolt. What was her crime after all, and why should she blush? Did she not every day tread upon greater infamies? Did she not elbow at the ministers', at the Tuileries, everywhere in fact, wretches like herself who had millions on their flesh, and who were adored on both knees! And she thought of the shameful friendship of Adeline d'Espanet and Suzanne Haffner, at which one smiled, at times, at the Empress's Mondays. And she recalled to herself the traffic of Madame de Lauwerens, whom husbands celebrated for her good conduct, her order, and her exactitude in settling her tradesmen's bills. She named Madame Daste, Madame Teissière, the Baroness de Meinhold, those creatures whose luxury was paid for by their lovers, and who were quoted in society like shares are quoted upon change. Madame de Guende was so stupid and so well formed, that she had three superior officers for her lovers at the same time, and was unable to distinguish them from each other on account of their uniforms. This made that demon of a Louise say that she first of all made them strip to their shifts so as to know which of the three she was talking to. As for the Countess Vanska, she remembered the courtyards in which she had sung, the side-walks on which people pretended they had again seen her, dressed in printed calico, and prowling about like a she-wolf. Each of these women had her shame, her triumphant, displayed sore. And, overtopping them all, the Duchess de Sternich rose up, ugly, old, worn out, with the glory of having passed a night in the Imperial bed; she typified official vice, from which she derived the majesty of debauchery and a kind of sovereignty over this band of illustrious hussies.
The incestuous stepmother accustomed herself to her sin, as to a gala robe the stiffness of which might at first have inconvenienced her. She followed the fashions of the period, she dressed and undressed herself in the style of others. She ended by believing that she lived amid a circle above common morality, in which the senses became more acute and developed, and in which one was allowed to strip oneself naked for the joy of all Olympus. Sin became a luxury, a flower set in the hair, a diamond fastened on the brow. And she again saw, like a justification and redemption, the Emperor passing on the general's arm, between two rows of inclined shoulders.