“For pleasure, my child, men will commit the most cowardly, the most infamous actions—even crimes; it lies in their nature, it would seem. We wives are set apart for sacrifice. I believed my troubles were ended, and they are beginning again, for I never thought to suffer doubly by suffering with my child. Courage—and silence!—My Hortense, swear that you will never discuss your griefs with anybody but me, never let them be suspected by any third person. Oh! be as proud as your mother has been.”
Hortense started; she had heard her husband’s step.
“So it would seem,” said Wenceslas, as he came in, “that Stidmann has been here while I went to see him.”
“Indeed!” said Hortense, with the angry irony of an offended woman who uses words to stab.
“Certainly,” said Wenceslas, affecting surprise. “We have just met.”
“And yesterday?”
“Well, yesterday I deceived you, my darling love; and your mother shall judge between us.”
This candor unlocked his wife’s heart. All really lofty women like the truth better than lies. They cannot bear to see their idol smirched; they want to be proud of the despotism they bow to.
There is a strain of this feeling in the devotion of the Russians to their Czar.
“Now, listen, dear mother,” Wenceslas went on. “I so truly love my sweet and kind Hortense, that I concealed from her the extent of our poverty. What could I do? She was still nursing the boy, and such troubles would have done her harm; you know what the risk is for a woman. Her beauty, youth, and health are imperiled. Did I do wrong?—She believes that we owe five thousand francs; but I owe five thousand more. The day before yesterday we were in the depths! No one on earth will lend to us artists. Our talents are not less untrustworthy than our whims. I knocked in vain at every door. Lisbeth, indeed, offered us her savings.”