Original Short Stories – Volume 05. Guy de Maupassant
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looking upon Parent as a martyr, is very unpleasant?”
Limousin threw himself into an easy-chair and crossed his legs. “I am not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I think that, situated as we are, it is ridiculous to defy this man as you do, from morning till night.”
She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lighted it, and replied: “But I do not defy him; quite the contrary. Only he irritates me by his stupidity, and I treat him as he deserves.”
Limousin continued impatiently: “What you are doing is very foolish! I am only asking you to treat your husband gently, because we both of us require him to trust us. I think that you ought to see that.”
They were close together: he, tall, dark, with long whiskers and the rather vulgar manners of a good-looking man who is very well satisfied with himself; she, small, fair, and pink, a little Parisian, born in the back room of a shop, half cocotte and half bourgeoise, brought up to entice customers to the store by her glances, and married, in consequence, to a simple, unsophisticated man, who saw her outside the door every morning when he went out and every evening when he came home.
“But do you not understand; you great booby,” she said, “that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says and does, everything that he thinks, acts on my nerves? He exasperates me every moment by his stupidity, which you call his kindness; by his dullness, which you call his confidence, and then, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you. I feel him between us, although he does not interfere with us much. And then – and then! No, it is, after all, too idiotic of him not to guess anything! I wish he would, at any rate, be a little jealous. There are moments when I feel inclined to say to him: ‘Do you not see, you stupid creature, that Paul is my lover?’
“It is quite incomprehensible that you cannot understand how hateful he is to me, how he irritates me. You always seem to like him, and you shake hands with him cordially. Men are very extraordinary at times.”
“One must know how to dissimulate, my dear.”
“It is no question of dissimulation, but of feeling. One might think that, when you men deceive one another, you like each other better on that account, while we women hate a man from the moment that we have betrayed him.”
“I do not see why one should hate an excellent fellow because one is friendly with his wife.”
“You do not see it? You do not see it? You all of you are wanting in refinement of feeling. However, that is one of those things which one feels and cannot express. And then, moreover, one ought not. No, you would not understand; it is quite useless! You men have no delicacy of feeling.”
And smiling, with the gentle contempt of an impure woman, she put both her hands on his shoulders and held up her lips to him. He stooped down and clasped her closely in his arms, and their lips met. And as they stood in front of the mantel mirror, another couple exactly like them embraced behind the clock.
They had heard nothing, neither the noise of the key nor the creaking of the door, but suddenly Henriette, with a loud cry, pushed Limousin away with both her arms, and they saw Parent looking at them, livid with rage, without his shoes on and his hat over his forehead. He looked at each, one after the other, with a quick glance of his eyes and without moving his head. He appeared beside himself. Then, without saying a word, he threw himself on Limousin, seized him as if he were going to strangle him, and flung him into the opposite corner of the room so violently that the other lost his balance, and, beating the air with his hand, struck his head violently against the wall.
When Henriette saw that her husband was going to murder her lover, she threw herself on Parent, seized him by the neck, and digging her ten delicate, rosy fingers into his neck, she squeezed him so tightly, with all the vigor of a desperate woman, that the blood spurted out under her nails, and she bit his shoulder, as if she wished to tear it with her teeth. Parent, half-strangled and choking, loosened his hold on Limousin, in order to shake off his wife, who was hanging to his neck. Putting his arms round her waist, he flung her also to the other end of the drawing-room.
Then, as his passion was short-lived, like that of most good-tempered men, and his strength was soon exhausted, he remained standing between the two, panting, worn out, not knowing what to do next. His brutal fury had expended itself in that effort, like the froth of a bottle of champagne, and his unwonted energy ended in a gasping for breath. As soon as he could speak, however, he said:
“Go away – both of you – immediately! Go away!”
Limousin remained motionless in his corner, against the wall, too startled to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger; while Henriette, with her hands resting on a small, round table, her head bent forward, her hair hanging down, the bodice of her dress unfastened, waited like a wild animal which is about to spring. Parent continued in a stronger voice: “Go away immediately. Get out of the house!”
His wife, however, seeing that he had got over his first exasperation grew bolder, drew herself up, took two steps toward him, and, grown almost insolent, she said: “Have you lost your head? What is the matter with you? What is the meaning of this unjustifiable violence?”
But he turned toward her, and raising his fist to strike her, he stammered out: “Oh – oh – this is too much, too much! I heard everything! Everything – do you understand? Everything! You wretch – you wretch! You are two wretches! Get out of the house, both of you! Immediately, or I shall kill you! Leave the house!”
She saw that it was all over, and that he knew everything; that she could not prove her innocence, and that she must comply. But all her impudence had returned to her, and her hatred for the man, which was aggravated now, drove her to audacity, made her feel the need of bravado, and of defying him, and she said in a clear voice: “Come, Limousin; as he is going to turn me out of doors, I will go to your lodgings with you.”
But Limousin did not move, and Parent, in a fresh access of rage, cried out: “Go, will you? Go, you wretches! Or else – or else – ” He seized a chair and whirled it over his head.
Henriette walked quickly across the room, took her lover by the arm, dragged him from the wall, to which he appeared fixed, and led him toward the door, saying: “Do come, my friend – you see that the man is mad. Do come!”
As she went out she turned round to her husband, trying to think of something that she could do, something that she could invent to wound him to the heart as she left the house, and an idea struck her, one of those venomous, deadly ideas in which all a woman’s perfidy shows itself, and she said resolutely: “I am going to take my child with me.”
Parent was stupefied, and stammered: “Your – your – child? You dare to talk of your child? You venture – you venture to ask for your child – after-after – Oh, oh, that is too much! Go, you vile creature! Go!”
She went up to him again, almost smiling, almost avenged already, and defying him, standing close to him, and face to face, she said: “I want my child, and you have no right to keep him, because he is not yours – do you understand? He is not yours! He is Limousin’s!”
And Parent cried out in bewilderment: “You lie – you lie – worthless woman!”
But she continued: “You fool! Everybody knows it except you. I tell you, this is his father. You need only look at him to see it.”
Parent staggered backward, and then he suddenly turned round, took a candle, and rushed into the next room; returning almost immediately, carrying little George wrapped up in his bedclothes. The child, who had been suddenly awakened, was crying from fright. Parent threw him into his wife’s arms, and then, without speaking, he pushed her roughly out toward the stairs, where Limousin was waiting, from motives of prudence.
Then he shut the door again, double-locked and bolted it, but had scarcely got back into the drawing-room when he fell to the floor at full length.
Parent lived alone, quite alone. During the five weeks that followed their separation, the feeling of surprise at his new life prevented him from thinking much. He had resumed his bachelor life, his habits of lounging, about, and took his meals at a restaurant, as he had done formerly.