To oversee all the details of the housekeeping had become something more than a wise and self-imposed occupation. It had been made a law of her existence, so serious and so sacred that she might have been compared to a Roman matron in respect to the trivial solemnity of domestic toil, if in no other respect.
Thus she presented in her person the strange anachronism of a woman of our own time, capable of reasoning and feeling, but who had insanely forced herself to retrograde some thousands of years in order to make herself like one of those women of ancient times whose glory it was to proclaim the inferiority of their sex.
The strange and sad feature of her position was that she did not realize it, and that she acted as she did—so she would say in a whisper—for the sake of peace. And she did not obtain it! The more she immolated herself, the more she bored her lord and master.
Nothing weakens and destroys the intelligence so quickly as blind submission.
Madame Cardonnet was an example of this truth.
Her brain had shrivelled in slavery, and her husband, not realizing that it was the result of his domination, had reached the point of despising her in secret.
Several years earlier Cardonnet had been terribly jealous, and his wife, although faded and worn, still trembled at the idea that he might impute a vicious thought to her. She had acquired the habit of not listening or looking, so that she could say confidently when any man was mentioned to her: "I didn't look at him; I don't know what he said; I paid no attention to him." The utmost that she dared do was look at her son and question him; for, as to her husband, if she was made anxious by the unusual pallor of his cheeks or the increased severity of his glance, he would speedily compel her to lower her eyes, saying: "In heaven's name, what is there extraordinary about me that you should stare at me as if you didn't know me?" Sometimes, at night, he would notice that she had been weeping, and he would become affectionate once more after his fashion. "Tell me, what's the matter? Is something troubling the poor little woman? Would you like a new shawl? Would you like me to take you to drive? No? Then it must be because the camellias are frozen? We will have some sent down from Paris that are more hardy and so beautiful that you won't regret the old ones." And, in truth, he lost no opportunity to gratify his helpmeet's innocent tastes, at any price. He even required her to dress more richly than she cared to do. It was his idea that wives are children who must be rewarded for being good with toys and gimcracks.
"It is certain," Madame Cardonnet would say to herself at such times, "that my husband loves me dearly, and he is very attentive to me. What have I to complain of, and what is the reason that I always feel depressed?"
She saw that Emile was gloomy and downcast, and she could not extort the secret of his trouble from him. She questioned him at tedious length concerning his health, and advised him to go to bed early. She had a feeling that it was something more serious than the result of insomnia; but she said to herself that it was much better to allow a sorrow to fall asleep in silence than to keep it alive by trying to allay it.
That evening Emile, as he was walking near the entrance to the village, met Jean Jappeloup, who had returned several hours earlier and was joyously celebrating his arrival with several friends, in the doorway of a rustic dwelling.