"Sit down! I have to speak to you," he said, putting the

portfolio under his arm, and squeezing it so tightly with his

elbow that his shoulder stood up. Amazed and intimidated, she

gazed at him in silence.

"I told you that I would not allow you to receive your lover in

this house."

"I had to see him to..."

She stopped, not finding a reason.

"I do not enter into the details of why a woman wants to see her

lover."

"I meant, I only..." she said, flushing hotly. This coarseness

of his angered her, and gave her courage. "Surely you must feel

how easy it is for you to insult me?" she said.

"An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a

thief he's a thief is simply _la constatation d'un fait_."

"This cruelty is something new I did not know in you."

"You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty,

giving her the honorable protection of his name, simply on the

condition of observing the proprieties: is that cruelty?"

"It's worse than cruel--it's base, if you want to know!" Anna

cried, in a rush of hatred, and getting up, she was going away.

"No!" he shrieked, in his shrill voice, which pitched a note

higher than usual even, and his big hands clutching her by the

arm so violently that red marks were left from the bracelet he

was squeezing, he forcibly sat her down in her place.

"Base! If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake

husband and child for a lover, while you eat your husband's

bread!"

She bowed her head. She did not say what she had said the

evening before to her lover, that _he_ was her husband, and her

husband was superfluous; she did not even think that. She felt

all the justice of his words, and only said softly: "You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be

myself; but what are you saying all this for?"

"What am I saying it for? what for?" he went on, as angrily.

"That you may know that since you have not carried out my wishes

in regard to observing outward decorum, I will take measures to

put an end to this state of things."

"Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway," she said; and again, at

the thought of death near at hand and now desired, tears came

into her eyes.




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