Comedy of Marriage and Other Tales | Page 3

me that you do not love me.
MME. DE SALLUS
Now, what are you complaining about? Of things I do not
say?--because--I do not think you have anything else to reproach me
with.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Forgive me, I am jealous.
MME. DE SALLUS
Of whom?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
I do not know. I am jealous of everything that I do not know about you.
MME. DE SALLUS
Yes, and without my knowing anything about these things, too.

JACQUES DE RANDOL
Forgive me, I love you too much--so much that everything disturbs me.
MME. DE SALLUS
Everything?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Yes, everything.
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