“And where is it that they talk, if you please?”
“Everywhere!... At the college, at the Institute, among your colleagues, and even in the newspapers....”
“Ah, you are well informed!... It is probably M. Boerzell who....”
“He and everyone else, father.... He and all the allusions, the wicked words with which people delight in wounding us, among our relations, our acquaintances, when we pay or are being paid visits....”
M. Raindal retorted with a broadside of noisy sarcasm:
“Evidently the danger is more serious than I thought. One must not neglect the warnings of so many kind earnest people. One must be cautious and put the brake on.... From now on, I place myself in your hands.... You yourselves will regulate the days and the hours of my visits in the rue de Prony.... If necessary, Brigitte can take me there and bring me back. I am so weak, so inexperienced, so childish!”
He went on in that tone for several minutes. By a phenomenon of auto-suggestion, the whole of his late-come virility was in a state of excitement and increasing revolt against this control, the details and the episodes of which he was himself creating. Every point raised was like a new sting that goaded him further, and poured into his veins a quick, warm poison which over-heated his sufferings with its own energy. He saw himself deprived in future, and forever, of Mme. Chambannes, forever interned far away from her, a prey to the worst torments of separation and perhaps of jealousy. For, supposing that Thérèse had spoken the truth!... A sudden anguish whipped his heart. His imaginary regrets almost reached a paroxysm. He changed his tone suddenly, and in a voice that was hurried and hollow, and which sounded the revolt, he said:
“Enough of this jest!... It is quite enough.... Oh! I know, for a long while I have had some idea of all the wicked thoughts and shameful suspicions which you were piling up against me!... Your plots, your sneers, your confabulations, and even your silence, which was more insidious than all the rest—none of those things has escaped me!... If, a minute ago, when you opened your souls to me, I showed some surprise, it was due less to the unexpectedness of it than to disgust.... Really, I did not believe that I could find so much mud and villainy in them.... Pshaw! Let it be so!... I know neither what your inspiration is, nor what your idea is based on, and I do wish to know.... But what I do wish and what I insist upon henceforth is that I shall be master in my home and free outside of it. What I want and insist upon is an end to your hypocritical grimaces, your aggressive silence, and all those sly maneuvers that are only an imitation of docility and shock me more than your insults of a little while ago.... Finally, I want confidence, esteem, and the respect to which I am entitled by my age, by a continuous life of steady work, and I may even say to have no false modesty, by my rank and my own worth.... If I cannot obtain these, we shall give up our life in common, since it would be unbearable for all of us to continue it.... This is clear, is it not?... I shall not come back to this point.... And to begin, this very day, I have the honor to inform you that, with or without you, I shall go and spend a month at Les Frettes.... You may consult with each other, make up your minds.... You have ample time, for Mme. Chambannes is not going for ten days.... However, until then, not a word on the subject, not a remark.... I will tolerate none. Yes, or no. I will not put up with more.”
He walked towards his study, adding, as he placed his hand on the door-knob: