The Thibaults Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Seine, she had caught a glimpse of something that made her stiffen up abruptly. Yes, she had recognized her husband Jerome, bending over a girl who was sitting on one of the benches by the riverside. The girl was crying. How often since then her fancy had cruelly enlarged on that brief glimpse, taking a sad pleasure in elaborating the details: the young woman shamelessly parading her grief, with her hat clumsily askew, and hastily extracting from her skirt a large, coarse handkerchief! And Jerome’s expression, above all! How sure she was of having guessed aright the feelings that possessed him then! A little pity, to be sure, for she knew that he was weak and easily moved; and a good deal of exasperation at being involved in such a scene in public; and, behind it all, cruelty. Yes, in his very attitude as he bent forward solicitously but without real tenderness, she could see only too clearly the shallow compunction of the lover who has “had enough of it,” who is perhaps already in quest of new adventure, and who, despite his pity, despite a secret shame, has decided to exploit the woman’s tears to make the breach between them absolute. All this had been revealed to her in a flash of insight, and each time the haunting memory returned she felt the faintness she was feeling now.
    She left the room hastily and locked the door.
    A definite plan had suggested itself: that young maid she had had to dismiss six months ago—yes, she must see Mariette. Mme. de Fontanin knew the address of her new place. Mastering her distaste, without further hesitaton, she went there.

    The kitchen opened onto a service-staircase, on the fourth floor. It was the unsavoury hour of washing-up. Mariette opened the door. She was a bright little thing with golden curls and candid eyes—hardly more than a child. When she saw her former mistress, she blushed, but her eyes lit up.
    “It’s very nice seeing you again, Ma’am. … Is Miss Jenny all right?”
    Mme. de Fontanin hesitated, an anguished smile on her lips.
    “Mariette—please tell me my husband’s address.”
    The girl blushed scarlet; her large, puzzled eyes filled with tears. The address? She shook her head, she didn’t know—not where he was now . The master hadn’t been living at the hotel where … No, he had dropped her almost immediately. “Then you don’t know, Ma’am?” she added innocently.
    But Mme. de Fontanin was moving away towards the door, with lowered eyes; she could not bear hearing any more. There was a short silence. The water in a saucepan was boiling over, hissing as it fell onto the range. Without thinking, Mme. de Fontanin pointed to it.
    “Your water’s boiling over,” she said. Then, still moving towards the door, she added: “Are you happy here, my dear?”
    The girl made no reply. When Mme. de Fontanin looked up, it seemed to her that there was something of the animal in the eyes and the keen teeth that showed between the young, parted lips. After a pause that seemed interminable to both, the girl brought herself to speak.
    “Couldn’t you ask … Mme. Petit-Dutreuil?” she stammered.
    Mme. de Fontanin did not hear the burst of sobbing that followed. She was hurrying down the stairs as if the house were on fire. That name had cast a sudden light on a number of coincidences she had hardly noticed at the time and had forgotten immediately. Now they all came back, and each fell into place in a chain of damning evidence.
    An empty cab was passing; she jumped into it—the sooner she was home, the better. But, on the point of giving her address, an uncontrollable impulse gripped her—she fancied she was obeying a prompting from above.
    “Rue de Monceau,” she told the driver.
    A quarter of an hour later she was ringing at the door of her cousin, Noémie Petit-Dutreuil.
    A fair-haired little girl of about fifteen opened the door. Her eyes smiled a greeting to the visitor.
    “Good morning, Nicole. Is your mother at home?”
    She was