“Ah, there, you see, lies the difference. You read it for the dirt. Yes, undeniably, Zola is dirty, but he is not immoral. However, I think he is dull. He photographs caricatures, and that is in itself absurd. One photographs realities; caricatures should be drawn. No, I am not speaking to you, Willie; I am speaking to somebody as an audience: one has to sometimes. I’ll throw away this book, if you like.” She looked up at her husband almost entreatingly.
Willie hesitated, standing in the middle of the room.
“Oh no,” he said. “After all, it’s your business, not mine.”
“All right. Don’t eat too much cake.”
Helena returned to her volume, but not to her reading. Between her eyes and the printed page there settled, immovable, a vision of a handsome, animated, angry face, and once more she saw a blue-paper novel flying into a corner of the room. “No man that really loves a woman would like to think of her as reading such a book as that.”
She turned away, on her couch, and stared hard at the pink-embroidered rosebuds on the wall.
“What! Crying?” exclaimed Willie, in great distress, coming round from the window. “Why, Nellie, what’s the matter? Is your toothache bad again?”
“Yes, very bad,” she sobbed, breaking down. “Do go, Willie, and send me Mademoiselle Papotier with the little bottle of laudanum.”
Mademoiselle Papotier had remained at the Van Trossarts’, but she frequently came to spend a few days with Helena. She now duly appeared, summoned by loud cries from her host.
“Papotier,” said Helena, thoughtfully, “if ever I have a daughter, I shall not educate her as you educated me.”