“I am accustomed to Louise,” he said to himself, “she knows all my affairs. If I were free to marry to-morrow, I should not find anyone to take her place.” Then he began to plume himself on the idea that his wife was innocent. This point of view did not require any manifestation of character, and suited him much better. “How many calumniated women has one not seen?”
“But,” he suddenly exclaimed, as he walked about feverishly, “shall I put up with her making a fool of me with her lover as though I were a man of no account, some mere ragamuffin? Is all Verrières to make merry over my complaisance? What have they not said about Charmier (he was a husband in the district who was notoriously deceived)? Was there not a smile on every lip at the mention of his name? He is a good advocate, but whoever said anything about his talent for speaking? ‘Oh, Charmier,’ they say, ‘Bernard’s Charmier,’ he is thus designated by the name of the man who disgraces him.”
“I have no daughter, thank heaven,” M. de Rênal would say at other times, “and the way in which I am going to punish the mother will consequently not be so harmful to my children’s household. I could surprise this little peasant with my wife and kill them both; in that case the tragedy of the situation would perhaps do away with the grotesque element.” This idea appealed to him. He followed it up in all its details. “The penal code is on my side, and whatever happens our congregation and my friends on the jury will save me.” He examined his hunting-knife which was quite sharp, but the idea of blood frightened him.
“I could thrash this insolent tutor within an inch of his life and hound him out of the house; but what a sensation that would make in Verrières and even over the whole department! After Falcoz’ journal had been condemned, and when its chief editor left prison, I had a hand in making him lose his place of six hundred francs a year. They say that this scribbler has dared to show himself again in Besançon. He may lampoon me adroitly and in such a way that it will be impossible to bring him up before the courts. Bring him up before the courts! The insolent wretch will insinuate in a thousand and one ways that he has spoken the truth. A well-born man who keeps his place like I do, is hated by all the plebeians. I shall see my name in all those awful Paris papers. Oh, my God, what depths. To see the ancient name of Rênal plunged in the mire of ridicule. If I ever travel I shall have to change my name. What! abandon that name which is my glory and my strength. Could anything be worse than that?
“If I do not kill my wife but turn her out in disgrace, she has her aunt in Besançon who is going to hand all her fortune over to her. My wife will go and live in Paris with Julien. It will be known at Verrières, and I shall be taken for a dupe.” The unhappy man then noticed from the paleness of the lamplight that the dawn was beginning to appear. He went to get a little fresh air in the garden. At this moment he had almost determined to make no scandal, particularly in view of the fact that a scandal would overwhelm with joy all his good friends in Verrières.
The promenade in the garden calmed him a little. “No,” he exclaimed, “I shall not deprive myself of my wife, she is too useful to me.” He imagined with horror what his house would be without his wife. The only relative he had was the Marquise of R—— old, stupid, and malicious.
A very sensible idea occurred to him, but its execution required a strength of character considerably superior to the small amount of character which the poor man possessed. “If I keep my wife,” he said to himself, “I know what I shall do one day; on some occasion when she makes me lose patience, I shall reproach her with her guilt. She is proud, we shall quarrel, and all this will happen before she has inherited her aunt’s fortune. And how they will all make fun of me then! My wife loves her children, the result will be that everything will go to them. But as for me, I shall be the laughing-stock of Verrières. ‘What,’ they will say, ‘he could not even manage to revenge himself on his wife!’ Would it not be better to leave it and verify nothing? In that case I tie my hands, and cannot afterwards reproach her with anything.”
An instant afterwards M. de Rênal, once more a prey to wounded vanity, set himself laboriously to recollect all the methods of procedure mentioned in the billiard-room of the Casino or the Nobles’ Club in Verrières, when some fine talker interrupted the pool to divert himself at the expense of some deceived husband. How cruel these pleasantries appeared to him at the present moment!
“My God, why is my wife not dead! then I should be impregnable against ridicule. Why am I not a widower? I should go and pass six months in Paris in the best society. After this moment of happiness occasioned by the idea of widowerhood, his imagination reverted to the means of assuring himself of the truth. Should he put a slight layer of bran before the door of Julien’s room at midnight after everyone had gone to bed? He would see the impression of the feet in the following morning.
“But that’s no good,” he suddenly exclaimed with rage. “That inquisitive Elisa will notice it, and they will soon know all over the house that I am jealous.”