When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of "cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your brain by reading novels.
What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had walked about the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. A week later you had embarked upon your first liaison. A month later the whole town was aware of it.
That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely.
The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve.
I will not accuse you without producing proofs. Enclosed you will find a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment.
A penniless widow turned forty—we are about the same age—with five children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible marriage—not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women.
You have shown yourself in public with your admirers.
Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections which ought to have been concealed.
And the men you selected?
I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your friends objected and were ashamed on your account.