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Thus, apparently calm, I awaited the coming of misfortune; I repeated in a low voice what Brigitte had said, and I placed near her all that I supposed she would need for the night; I looked at her, and then went to the window and pressed my forehead against the pane, peering out at a somber and lowering sky; then I returned to the bedside.
Then morning came; day appeared; I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and I awakened with a smile on my lips, mocking at everything, believing in nothing. During these terrible hours, Brigitte appeared to forget that there was a man in me other than the one she saw. When I asked her pardon she shrugged her shoulders as if to answer: "Do you not know that I pardon you?"
"Perhaps not; if this is the course you take, it is not at all sure that you and I will go out of the same door long." "Do you mean that Monsieur Thuillier will send me away? He must have reasons for doing that, and, thank God! I have been a wife above reproach." "Viper! hypocrite! heartless creature!" cried Brigitte, coming to an end of her arguments.
At this moment the guests were sincerely touched by the sight presented of old Mademoiselle Brigitte and Madame Thuillier. Brigitte, pale as though she were fainting, was letting the slow tears run, unheeded, down her cheeks, tears of deepest joy; while Madame Thuillier sat, as if struck by lightning, with her eyes fixed.
At least she thought of nothing but pleasure and confessed it freely; she did not preach sermons herself, nor did she listen to them from others; I went so far as to tell Brigitte that she ought to adopt her as a model, and that she was just the kind of woman to please me. Poor Madame Daniel discovered signs of melancholy in Brigitte's eyes.
The first rays of dawn began to appear: man and nature were rousing themselves from sleep and the air was filled with the confusion of distant sounds. Weak and exhausted, I was about to leave Brigitte, and seek a little repose. As I was passing out of the room, a dress thrown on a chair slipped to the floor near me, and in its folds I spied a piece of paper.
He was remarkably active, and enjoyed attending to matters of this kind. When I returned to my apartments, I found him on the floor, strapping a trunk. Brigitte was at the piano we had rented by the week during our stay. She was playing one of those old airs into which she put so much expression, and which were so dear to us.
And then I took pleasure in observing that I had outgrown my foolish jealousy, which was the same as saying, that I no longer esteemed her highly enough to be jealous of her. At first, I kept such thoughts to myself, but soon found pleasure in revealing them to Brigitte. We went out for a walk.
This priest will not fight; if I seek a quarrel with him, he will say that his priestly robes forbid, and he will continue his vile gossip when I have gone. Moreover, for what can I hold him responsible? What is it that has disturbed Brigitte? They say that her reputation has been sullied, that I ill-treat her, and that she ought not to submit to it. What stupidity!
Thus the inexorable spectres of the past pursued me without respite; thus Brigitte, seeing herself treated alternately as a faithless mistress and a shameless woman, fell into a condition of melancholy that clouded our entire life; and worst of all, that sadness even, the cause of which I knew, was not the most burdensome of our sorrows.
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