Such were the habitual reasonings by which Alfred sought to stifle the growing viper of suspicion. But the more he reasoned in this way, the more his suspicion augmented, since by reasoning about his distrust he thought about it, and in consequence rendered it more present to his mind. He was striving against these inward thoughts one afternoon of that same month of February, when returning on foot from the Orleans terminus, whither a piece of duty had led him. The weather was fine, the pale, fresh azure of the cool winter days was floating over Paris, and although it took him out of his way, Alfred entered the Jardin des Plantes, in order to enjoy his walk a little. At a turning in one of the main avenues of the garden, his heart beat more quickly, for walking slowly under the bare trees, and talking together in an absorbed fashion, he had just perceived a woman who had Helen's figure and a man with the figure of Armand.
Yes, it was indeed they. He knew so well his wife's easy gait, and that other somewhat lagging step which reminded him of so many strolls in a college quadrangle, not very far from this spot. But why was he seized with acute pain at this meeting? What could be more natural than that Helen should walk thus with Armand, what more natural or more innocent? Do people who wish to do wrong come in this way into a public garden? They were not even arm-in-arm. Yes, but why had not Helen mentioned at luncheon that she was going to walk with Armand? Did she not know that he would think nothing of it? Hiding from him? Why?
"I will go up to them," he thought. "I will speak to them, and soon see whether she is confused. But no; it would look as though I had followed them. Perhaps they have met by chance? What if I were now to follow them?"
The thought of such espionage sickened him.
They were still walking in front of him in that vast avenue which runs beside the bison enclosure and the bear-pits. Overhead, the gigantic trees curved their naked boughs, the blackness of which stood out sadly against the blue sky. Chazel felt his limbs shaking beneath him, and sank upon a bench. He told himself that he must either look upon this meeting as a most natural thing, and in that case it was childish not to speak to his wife and her friend, or else—and it was just this second hypothesis whose sudden thrusting into his mind paralysed him.
"All," he said to himself, "will be explained on her return."
Some minutes passed away in this anguish and irresolution. The couple disappeared in the direction of the little hill that leads to the labyrinth. Chazel was almost happy at their disappearance. It provided him with a pretext for not acting immediately. And, in fact, he went out of the garden by the opposite gate, saying to himself, in vindication of the impotence of will to which he had just fallen a victim, that it was, moreover, the surest way of arriving at a certainty. If Helen spoke to him in the evening about this walk, the walk was, as he believed it to be, innocence itself. If not—but what sort of ideas was he again taking into his head?
The shock had been so great that, instead of returning home, he walked about for part of the afternoon. The advent of the moment when he would see his wife again was now what he desired, and at the same time what he most dreaded. He was on the point of turning back and entering the garden again, but it was too late.
He stepped upon the deck of one of the boats that ply on the Seine, and there, mingling with the crowd of lower middle-class folk, he watched the water breaking against the arches, and shattering against the quays, the construction of which he mechanically examined; and he followed with his gaze the huge lighters, with the clean little painted houses standing in the centre. The air became keen, but he did not notice it until he had reached Auteuil. He landed under the viaduct, amid the din of the fair which every afternoon attracts such a strange tribe of prostitutes and their followers. He returned on foot along the interminable parapet. His anguish was so great that he could not remember having ever experienced anything analogous to it. His heart was paining him in his left breast, so that it seemed as though breath would fail him. Night was falling fast, the winter night, whose oncoming is so melancholy. The death struggle of the light is so cruelly like the agony of thought!
Here he was at last at his own street, in his own courtyard, in front of his own door. He did not ask whether his wife had returned, but he went straight to her room, and knocked modestly. Helen's clear voice said, "Come in." He was in her presence, and involuntarily he looked at her feet. She still wore her walking boots, with that trifle of dust on them which shows that a woman has gone on foot. Ah! how he would have liked to question her! But instinctively he grasped that which constitutes the powerlessness of all jealousy; what is the use of entering, with a woman who is mistrusted, upon a discussion turning upon this very mistrust? She will not destroy it by saying "No," seeing that there is no belief in her.