“She hurried me into the hall.
“We reentered into that giddy Charenton.[2]
“Three times we made the tour, breaking our way with great difficulty through the waves of masks that were hurling themselves one upon the other; she trembling at every unseemly word that came to her ear; I blushing to be seen giving my arm to a woman who would thus put herself in the way of such words; then we returned to the end of the hall.
“She fell upon a sofa. I remained standing in front of her, my hand leaning on the back of her seat.
“‘Oh! this must seem to you very bizarre,’ she said, ‘but not more so than to me, I swear to you. I have not the slightest idea of all this’ (she looked at the ball), ‘for even in my dreams I could not imagine such things. But they wrote me, you see, that he would be here with a woman, and what sort of a woman should it be who could come to a place like this?’
“I made a gesture of surprise; she understood.
“‘But I am here, you wish to ask, do you not? Oh! but for me that is another thing: I, I am looking for him; I, I am his wife. As for these people, it is madness and dissipation that drives them hither. But I, I, it is jealousy infernal! I have been everywhere looking for him; I have been all night in a cemetery; I have been at Grève[3] on the day of an execution; and yet, I swear to you, as a young girl I have never once gone into the street without my mother; as a wife I have never taken one step out of doors without being followed by a lackey; and yet here I am, the same as all these women who are so familiar with the way; here I am giving my arm to a man whom I do not know, blushing under my mask at the opinion he ought to have of me! I know all this!—Have you ever been jealous, monsieur?’
“‘Unhappily,’ I replied to her.
“‘Then you will forgive me, for you understand. You know that voice that cries out to you “Do!” as in the ear of a madman; you have felt that arm that pushes one into shame and crime, like the arm of fate. You know that at such a moment one is capable of everything, if one can only get vengeance.’
“I was about to reply; all at once she rose, her eyes fastened on two dominoes that were passing in front of us at that moment.