Bélan stared at me and muttered:
“If that’s the kind of advice you give me!—Indeed! so that’s your opinion, is it?”
“I have no opinion or advice to give you. There are times when a man should look to nobody for advice but himself. What I can’t conceive is that a man should go about proclaiming his shame as you do.”
“Proclaiming! what does that mean, I pray to know? Because I come to confide my troubles to a friend, you call it proclaiming my shame! Look you! I don’t care to be a cuckold myself; every man has his own way of looking at things. I know very well that there are some husbands to whom it doesn’t make any difference, who let their wives go about with their lovers and seem to pay no attention to it.”
I had listened to Bélan impatiently; at that moment I could contain myself no longer; I jumped at him, seized him by the collar, and shook him violently, crying:
“Did you come here to say that for my benefit, monsieur? Do you mean to insult me and to include me among those obliging husbands to whom you refer? Morbleu! Monsieur Bélan, I am in no mood to endure any impertinence on that subject.”
The poor little man had submitted to be shaken, being totally unable to defend himself, he was so dazed by my action. At last he cried out, gazing at me in dismay:
“Blémont, my friend, what on earth is the matter with you? You certainly are ill; you are not yourself!”
I relaxed my hold, and, ashamed of my outbreak of wrath, I threw myself in a chair and faltered:
“Yes—yes—I am not well. I thought that you meant to insult me—but——”