“Ought I to give it up then?”
“Oh, no, indeed. Your work is your glory. I shall be afraid, but I shall pray. A woman can fear—”
However, I soon abandoned my studies because they seemed too problematical, and would not have been productive of immediate visible prestige. I was not to take them up again until much later.
* * *
One makes mistakes: I was mistaken in my belief of Raymonde’s lowly origin. I prided myself that I had raised her to my rank, by magnificent generosity, without seeking to divine how such tact and moral culture as hers had come about without the slow formation of time. The chance discovery of some legal document one day informed me of the great age and secular distinction of her family, which reverses had forced to take up service in almost the same place where it had once enjoyed its fortune. This discovery seemed a blow at my superiority. Pride kept me from mentioning it.
* * *
One evening we came home and found that her maid was not there for us. I made the occasion an excuse for reprimands.
“You do not know how to give your orders,” I said.
“I did not want her to wait up for me.”
“That is a mistake,” I said.