In a fit of self-abnegation she was severe on womankind, for she wished thus to lessen the cruelty of her blow.  But he did not listen to her or hear what she said.  With fumbling movements he had put on his boots and his overcoat.  For a moment longer he raved round, and then in a final outburst, finding himself near the door, he rushed from the room.  Nana was very much annoyed.

“Well, well!  A prosperous trip to you!” she continued aloud, though she was now alone.  “He’s polite, too, that fellow is, when he’s spoken to!  And I had to defend myself at that!  Well, I was the first to get back my temper and I made plenty of excuses, I’m thinking!  Besides, he had been getting on my nerves!”

Nevertheless, she was not happy and sat scratching her legs with both hands.  Then she took high ground: 

“Tut, tut, it isn’t my fault if he is a cuckold!”

And toasted on every side and as hot as a roast bird, she went and buried herself under the bedclothes after ringing for Zoe to usher in the other man, who was waiting in the kitchen.

Once outside, Muffat began walking at a furious pace.  A fresh shower had just fallen, and he kept slipping on the greasy pavement.  When he looked mechanically up into the sky he saw ragged, soot-colored clouds scudding in front of the moon.  At this hour of the night passers-by were becoming few and far between in the Boulevard Haussmann.  He skirted the enclosures round the opera house in his search for darkness, and as he went along he kept mumbling inconsequent phrases.  That girl had been lying.  She had invented her story out of sheer stupidity and cruelty.  He ought to have crushed her head when he had it under his heel.  After all was said and done, the business was too shameful.  Never would he see her; never would he touch her again, or if he did he would be miserably weak.  And with that he breathed hard, as though he were free once more.  Oh, that naked, cruel monster, roasting away like any goose and slavering over everything that he had respected for forty years back.  The moon had come out, and the empty street was bathed in white light.  He felt afraid, and he burst into a great fit of sobbing, for he had grown suddenly hopeless and maddened as though he had sunk into a fathomless void.

“My God!” he stuttered out.  “It’s finished!  There’s nothing left now!”

Along the boulevards belated people were hurrying.  He tried hard to be calm, and as the story told him by that courtesan kept recurring to his burning consciousness, he wanted to reason the matter out.  The countess was coming up from Mme de Chezelles’s country house tomorrow morning.  Yet nothing, in fact, could have prevented her from returning to Paris the night before and passing it with that man.  He now began recalling to mind certain details of their stay at Les Fondettes.  One evening, for instance, he had surprised Sabine in the shade of some trees, when she was so much agitated as to be unable to answer