I did not sleep that night: I had quite forgotten my husband. Suppose I too was going to die mad. The next day I asked the head waiter for details. He told me the most frightful story. I spent the day walking on the cliff. I said nothing, I was thinking. Madness! What a horrible death! Henry asked me: “What’s the matter? You seem sad.” “Nothing, nothing,” I answered. I stared distractedly at the sea, without seeing it at all: I stared at the farm and the fields, but I could not have said what I was looking at. Not for anything in the world would I have confessed to the thought that was torturing me. I had pains, genuine pains in my nose. I insisted on going back.
As soon as we returned to the hotel, I shut myself in my room to examine the wound. There was nothing to be seen now. There was no mistake about it, however, it was hurting me.
I wrote to my mother at once, a short letter that she must have thought very strange. I demanded an immediate reply to certain unimportant questions. After I had signed it, I added: “Above all, don’t forget to give me news of Bijou.”
The next day I could not eat, but I refused to see a doctor. I spent the day sitting on the beach watching the bathers in the water. They arrived, some fat, some thin, and all ugly in their frightful costumes; but I hardly had the heart to laugh. I was thinking: “They’re happy, those people. They haven’t been bitten. They’ll live, they will. They’re not living in fear of anything. They can amuse themselves in any way they like. How peaceful they are!”
I kept lifting my hand to my nose to feel it. Was it swelling up? As soon as I got back to the hotel, I shut myself in my room to look at it in the glass. Oh, if it had changed colour I should have died on the spot.
That evening, I felt suddenly something like affection for my husband, an affection born of despair. I felt that he was kind, I leaned on his arm. Twenty times I was on the verge of telling him my dreadful secret, but I held my tongue.
He took the most abominable advantage of my self-abandon and my utter exhaustion of spirit. I had not strength enough to resist him, nor even the will. I would have endured anything, suffered anything. The next day, I had a letter from mother. She answered my questions, but did not mention Bijou. I thought at once: “He’s dead and they’re hiding it from me.” Then I wanted to run to the telegraph office to send a wire. A thought stopped me: “If he is really dead, they won’t tell me.” So I resigned myself to another two days of agony. And I wrote again. I asked them to send me the dog to amuse me, because I was a little bored.
In the afternoon I was seized with a trembling fit. I could not lift a full glass without spilling half the contents. My mind was in a lamentable state. Towards dusk I escaped from my husband and hurried to the church. I prayed for a long time.
On the way back I felt fresh pains in my nose and I went into a chemist’s whose shop was lit up. I told him that a friend of mine had been bitten and I asked his advice. But I forgot everything as soon as he said it, my mind was so troubled. I remembered only one thing: “Purgings are often recommended.” I bought several bottles of goodness knows what, on the pretext of giving them to my friend.
The dogs I met filled me with horror and a wild desire to take to my heels and run away. Several times I thought that I felt an impulse to bite them too.
I had a horribly restless night. My husband profited thereby. First thing in the morning, I received a reply from my mother. Bijou, she said, was quite well. But it would be too risky to send him alone by rail like that. So they would not send him to me. He was dead!
I could not sleep again. As for Henry, he snored. He woke up several times. I was exhausted.
The following day, I bathed in the sea. I almost fainted on going into the water, I felt so terribly cold. I was still more distraught by this sensation of bitter cold. My legs shook dreadfully, but the worst pain of all was in my nose.
Someone happened to introduce the local medical inspector to me, a charming man. I led up to my subject very subtly. Then I told him that a few days ago my young dog had bitten me, and I asked him what would have to be done if inflammation set in. He began to laugh and answered:
“In your case, madame, I could think of only one course, which would be to operate on you.”
And as I did not understand, he added:
“And that would be your husband’s business.”
I was no farther on and no wiser when I left him.
Henry seemed very gay, and very happy this evening. We went to the Casino in the evening, but he did not wait for the end of the show before suggesting to me that we should go home. Nothing interested me any more now: I fell in with his wish.
But I could not rest in bed, my nerves were exhausted and on edge. Nor was he any the readier for sleep. He embraced me, caressed me, and was as gentle and tender as if he had at last guessed
