s a very fortunate
woman, to whom virtue must be so easy that it could hardly be called a
merit. Happiness, according to society, consists in a box at the Opera, a
fine carriage, and a husband who pays the bills without frowning. Add to
the above privileges, a hundred thousand francs' worth of diamonds, and a
woman has really no right to dream or to suffer. There are, however,
poor, loving creatures who stifle under this happiness as if under one of
those leaden covers that Dante speaks of; they breathe, in imagination,
the pure, vital air that a fatal instinct has revealed to them; they
struggle between duty and desire; they gaze, like captive doves and with
a sorrowful eye, upon the forbidden region where it would be so blissful
to soar; for, in fastening a chain to their feet, the law did not bandage
their eyes, and nature gave them wings; if the wings tear the chain
asunder, shame and misfortune await them! Society will never forgive the
heart that catches a glimpse of the joys it is unacquainted with; even a
brief hour in that paradise has to be expiated by implacable social
damnation and its everlasting flames.

CHAPTER XIV

GERFAUT'S ALLEGORY

There almost always comes a moment when a woman, in her combat against
love, is obliged to call falsehood to the help of duty. Madame de
Bergenheim had entered this terrible period, in which virtue, doubting
its own strength, does not blush to resort to other resources. At the
moment when Octave, a man of experience, was seeking assistance in
exciting her jealousy, she was meditating a plan of defence founded upon
deceit. In order to take away all hope from her lover, she pretended a
sudden affection for her husband, and in spite of her secret remorse she
persisted in this role for two days; but during the night her tears
expiated her treachery. Christian greeted his wife's virtuous coquetry
with the gratitude and eagerness of a husband who has been deprived of
love more than he likes. Gerfaut was very indignant at the sight of this
perfidious manoeuvre, the intention of which he immediately divined; and
his rage wanted only provocation to break out in full force.

One evening they were all gathered in the drawing-room with the exception
of Aline, whom a reprimand from Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had exiled to
her room. The old lady, stretched out in her chair, had decided to be
unfaithful to her whist in favor of conversation. Marillac, leaning his
elbows upon a r