that
day forth Muffat belonged to him entirely; he again became strictly
attentive to the duties of religion; his life was utterly blasted. He
had resigned his position as chamberlain out of respect for the outraged
modesty of the Tuileries, and soon Estelle, his daughter, brought an
action against him for the recovery of a sum of sixty thousand francs,
a legacy left her by an aunt to which she ought to have succeeded at the
time of her marriage. Ruined and living narrowly on the remains of his
great fortune, he let himself be gradually devoured by the countess,
who ate up the husks Nana had rejected. Sabine was indeed ruined by the
example of promiscuity set her by her husband's intercourse with the
wanton. She was prone to every excess and proved the ultimate ruin and
destruction of his very hearth. After sundry adventures she had returned
home, and he had taken her back in a spirit of Christian resignation and
forgiveness. She haunted him as his living disgrace, but he grew more
and more indifferent and at last ceased suffering from these distresses.
Heaven took him out of his wife's hands in order to restore him to the
arms of God, and so the voluptuous pleasures he had enjoyed with Nana
were prolonged in religious ecstasies, accompanied by the old stammering
utterances, the old prayers and despairs, the old fits of humility which
befit an accursed creature who is crushed beneath the mire whence he
sprang. In the recesses of churches, his knees chilled by the pavement,
he would once more experience the delights of the past, and his
muscles would twitch, and his brain would whirl deliciously, and the
satisfaction of the obscure necessities of his existence would be the
same as of old.

On the evening of the final rupture Mignon presented himself at the
house in the Avenue de Villiers. He was growing accustomed to Fauchery
and was beginning at last to find the presence of his wife's husband
infinitely advantageous to him. He would leave all the little
household cares to the journalist and would trust him in the active
superintendence of all their affairs. Nay, he devoted the money gained
by his dramatic successes to the daily expenditure of the family, and
as, on his part, Fauchery behaved sensibly, avoiding ridiculous jealousy
and proving not less pliant than Mignon himself whenever Rose found her
opportunity, the mutual understanding between the two men constantly
improved. In fact, they were happy in a partnership