She began to laugh.
This mocking laughter put him beside himself, and springing upon her he seized her by the throat with his left hand, while he boxed her ears furiously with the right. She recoiled, terrified and suffocating, and fell backward on the bed, while he continued to strike her. Suddenly he raised himself, out of breath, exhausted and heartily ashamed of his brutality; he stammered: “There—there—there—that will do!”
But she did not move; it seemed as if he had killed her. She lay on her back, on the side of the bed, her face concealed by her hands.
He approached her in alarm, wondering what had happened, and expecting her to uncover her face and look at him. She made no sign, and suspense becoming intolerable he murmured: “Cora, Cora, speak!” But she did not move or reply.
What was the matter with her? What was she going to do?
His rage had passed—fallen as suddenly as it had been aroused. He felt that his conduct was odious, almost criminal. He had beaten his wife, his own wife—he who was circumspect, cold, and courteous. And in the softness his remorse awakened, he would ask her forgiveness. He threw himself on his knees at her side and covered with kisses the cheek he had just smitten. He softly touched the end of a finger of the hand that covered her face. She seemed to feel nothing. He coaxed her, caressing her as one caresses a beaten dog. She took no notice of him. “Cora, listen: I have done wrong! Cora, hear me!” She seemed as one dead. Then he tried to take her hand from her face. It obeyed his effort passively, and he saw an open eye, which stared at him with a fixed and alarming gaze.
He continued: “Listen, Cora, I was transported with fury. It was your father who drove me to do this shameful thing. A man cannot take such an insult as that.” She made no reply, as if she heard nothing. He did not know what to say, or what to do. He kissed her under the ear, and raising himself he saw a tear in the corner of her eye, a great tear which rolled slowly down her cheek, and her eyelids fluttered and closed convulsively. He was seized with shame, deeply moved, and opening his arms he threw himself on his wife; he removed the other hand from her face and covered it with kisses, crying: “My poor Cora, forgive me! forgive me!”
Still she wept, without a sound, without a sob, as one weeps from the deepest grief. He held her pressed closely against him, caressing her and whispering in her ear all the tender words he could command. But she remained insensible. However, she ceased to weep. They continued thus a long time locked in each other’s arms.
The night fell, folding in its sombre shadow the little room; and when it was entirely dark he was emboldened to solicit her pardon in a manner that was calculated to revive their hopes.
When they had risen he resumed his ordinary voice and manner, as if nothing had happened. She appeared, on the contrary, softened, and spoke in a gentler tone than usual, regarding her husband with submissive, almost caressing eyes, as if this unexpected correction had relaxed her nerves and softened her heart.
Lesable said quietly: “Your father must be tired of being alone so long. It will soon be dinnertime; go and fetch him.”
She obeyed him.
It was seven o’clock indeed, and the little maid announced dinner, as Cachelin, serene and smiling, appeared with his daughter. They seated themselves at table and talked on this evening with more cordiality than they had done for a long time, as if something agreeable had happened to everybody.
V
But their hopes, always sustained, always renewed, ended in nothing. From month to month their expectations declined, in spite of the persistence of Lesable and the cooperation of his wife. They were consumed with anxiety. Each without ceasing reproached the other for their want of success, and the husband in despair, emaciated, fatigued, had to suffer all the vulgarity of Cachelin, who in their domestic warfare called him “M. Lecoq,” in remembrance, no doubt, of the day that he missed receiving a bottle in his face for having called his son-in-law a capon.
He and his daughter, whose interests were in league, enraged by the constant thought of this great fortune so near, and yet impossible to seize, racked their invention to humiliate and torture this impotent man, who was the cause of all their misfortune.
As they sat at table, Cora repeated each day: “There is very little for dinner. If we were rich, it would be otherwise. It is not my fault.”
When Lesable set out for his office, she called from her room: “Do not forget your umbrella or you will come back as muddy as an omnibus wheel. It’s not my fault that you are still obliged to follow the trade of a quill-driver.”
When she went out herself, she never failed to cry: “If I had married another man, I should have a carriage of my own.”
Every hour and on every occasion she harped on this subject. She pricked her husband with reproaches, lashed him with insult, held him alone guilty, and made him responsible for the loss of the fortune that should have been hers.
At last, one evening, losing all patience, Lesable exclaimed: “In the dog’s name, can’t you hold your tongue? From first to last it is your fault, and yours alone, do you hear, if we have not a child, because I have already had one.”
He lied, preferring anything to this eternal reproach, to this shame of appearing impotent. She looked at him, astonished at
