Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales. Guy de Maupassant

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      MME. DE SALLUS

      Are you jealous of my husband?

      JACQUES DE RANDOL [amazed]

      What an idea!

      MME. DE SALLUS [dryly]

      Well, you are wrong.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Always this raillery!

      MME. DE SALLUS No, I want to speak to you seriously about him, and to ask your advice.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      About your husband?

      MME. DE SALLUS [seriously]

      Yes, I am not laughing, or rather I do not laugh any more. [In lighter tone.] Then you are not jealous of my husband? And yet you know he is the only man who has authority over me.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      It is just because he has authority that I am not jealous. A woman's heart gives nothing to the man who has authority.

      MME. DE SALLUS

      My dear, a husband's right is a positive thing; it is a title-deed that he can lock up—just as my husband has for more than two years—but it is also one that he can use at any given moment, as lately he has seemed inclined to do.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL [astonished]

      You tell me that your husband—

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Yes.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Impossible!

      MME. DE SALLUS [bridles]

      And why impossible?

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Because your husband has—has—other occupations.

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Well, it pleases him to vary them, it seems.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Jesting apart, Madeline, what has happened?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Ah! Ah! Then you are becoming jealous of him.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Madeline, I implore you; tell me, are you mocking me, or are you speaking seriously?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      I am speaking seriously, indeed, very seriously.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Then what has happened?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Well, you know my position, although I have never told you all my past life. It is all very simple and very brief. At the age of nineteen I married the Count de Sallus, who fell in love with me after he had seen me at the Opéra-Comique. He already knew my father's lawyer. He was very nice to me in those early days; yes, very nice, and I really believed he loved me. As for myself, I was very circumspect in my behavior toward him, very circumspect indeed, so that he could never cast a shadow of reproach on my name.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Well, did you love him?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Good gracious! Why ask such questions?

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      Then you did love him?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Yes and no. If I loved him, it was the love of a little fool; but I certainly never told him, for positively I do not know how to show love.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      I can vouch for that!

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Well, it is possible that I cared for him sometimes, idiotically, like a timid, restless, trembling, awkward, little girl, always in fear of that disturbing thing—the love of a man—that disturbing thing that is sometimes so sweet! As for him—you know him. He was a sweetheart, a society sweetheart, who are always the worst of all. Such men really have a lasting affection only for those girls who are fitting companions for clubmen—girls who have a habit of telling doubtful stories and bestowing depraved kisses. It seems to me that to attract and to hold such people, the nude and obscene are necessary both in word and in body—unless—unless—it is true that men are incapable of loving any woman for a length of time.

      However, I soon became aware that he was indifferent to me, for he used to kiss me as a matter of course and look at me without realizing my presence; and in his manners, in his actions, in his conversation, he showed that I attracted him no longer. As soon as he came into the room he would throw himself upon the sofa, take up the newspaper, read it, shrug his shoulders, and when he read anything he did not agree with, he would express his annoyance audibly. Finally, one day, he yawned and stretched his arms in my face. On that day I understood that I was no longer loved. Keenly mortified I certainly was. But it hurt me so much that I did not realize it was necessary to coquet with him in order to retain his affection. I soon learned that he had a mistress, a woman of the world. Since then we have lived separate lives—after a very stormy explanation.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      What do you mean? What sort of explanation?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Well—

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      About—his mistress?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      Yes and no. I find it difficult to express myself. To avoid my suspicions he found himself obliged, doubtless, to dissimulate from time to time, although rarely, and to feign a certain affection for his legitimate wife, the woman who had the right to his affection. I told him that he might abstain in future from such a mockery of love.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      How did you tell him that?

      MME. DE SALLUS

      I don't remember.

      JACQUES DE RANDOL

      It must have been amusing.

      MME. СКАЧАТЬ