An Artifice
The old doctor and his young patient were talking by the side of the fire. There was nothing really the matter with her, except that she had one of those little feminine ailments from which pretty women frequently suffer—slight anaemia, an attack of nerves, and a suspicion of fatigue, probably of that fatigue from which newly-married people often suffer at the end of the first month of their married life, when they have made a love match.
She was lying on the chaise longue and talking. “No, doctor,” she said; “I shall never be able to understand a woman deceiving her husband. Even allowing that she does not love him, that she pays no heed to her vows and promises, how can she give herself to another man? How can she conceal the intrigue from other people’s eyes? How can it be possible to love amid lies and treason?”
The doctor smiled, and replied: “It is perfectly easy, and I can assure you that a woman does not think of all those little subtle details, when she has made up her mind to go astray. I even feel certain that no woman is ripe for true love until she has passed through all the promiscuousness and all the irksomeness of married life, which, according to a celebrated man, is nothing but an exchange of ill tempered words by day and bad smells at night. Nothing is more true, for no woman can love passionately until after she has married.
“As for dissimulation, all women have plenty of it on hand for such occasions. The simplest of them are wonderful tacticians, and extricate themselves from the greatest dilemmas in an extraordinary way.”
The young woman, however, seemed incredulous. “No, doctor,” she said; “one never thinks, until after it has happened, of what one ought to have done in a dangerous affair, and women are certainly more liable than men to lose their head on such occasions.”
The doctor raised his hands: “After it has happened, you say! Now I will tell you something that happened to one of my female patients, in whose mouth, I thought butter would not melt, as the saying is.
“It happened in a provincial town. One night when I was sleeping profoundly, in that deep, first sleep from which it is so difficult to rouse oneself, it seemed to me in my dreams as if the bells in the town were sounding a fire alarm and I woke up with a start. It was my own bell which was ringing wildly, and as my servant did not seem to be answering the door, I in turn pulled the bell at the head of my bed. Soon I heard banging and steps in the silent house, and then Jean came into my room and handed me a letter which said: ‘Madame Lelièvre begs Dr. Siméon to come to her immediately.’
“I thought for a few moments, and then I said to myself: ‘A nervous attack, vapours, nonsense; I am too tired.’
“And so I replied: ‘As Doctor Siméon is not at all well, he must beg Madame Lelièvre to be kind enough to call in his colleague, Monsieur Bonnet.’
“I put the note into an envelope, and went to sleep again, but about half an hour later, the street bell rang again, and Jean came to me and said: ‘There is somebody downstairs—I do not quite know whether it is a man or a woman, as the person is so wrapped up—who wishes to speak to you immediately. He says it is a matter of life and death for two people.’ Whereupon, I sat up in bed and told him to show the person in.
“A kind of black phantom appeared, who raised her veil as soon as Jean had left the room. It was Madame Bertha Lelièvre, quite a young woman, who had been married for three years to a big merchant in the town, who was said to have married the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood.
“She was terribly pale, her face was contracted like the faces of excited people occasionally are, and her hands trembled violently. Twice she tried to speak without being able to utter a sound, but at last she stammered out:
“ ‘Come—quick—quick, doctor—Come—my—my lover has just died in my bedroom.’ She stopped, half suffocated with emotion, and then went on: ‘My husband will—be coming home from the club very soon.’
“I jumped out of bed, without even considering that I was only in my nightshirt, and dressed myself in a few moments. Then I said: ‘Did you come a short time ago?’
“ ‘No,’ she said, standing like a statue petrified with horror. ‘It was my servant—she knows.’ And then, after a short silence, she went on: ‘I was there—by his side.’ And she uttered
