Two friends, with their backs to the orchestra were scanning those rows of elegance, that exhibition of real or false charms, of jewels, of luxury and of pretensions which showed itself off all round the Grand-Theatre, and one of them Roger de Salnis, said to his companion, Bernard Grandin:  “Just look how beautiful Countess de Mascaret still is.”

Then the older, in turn, looked through his opera glasses at a tall lady in a box opposite, who appeared to be still very young, and whose striking beauty seemed to appeal to the eyes in every corner of the house.  Her pale complexion, of an ivory tint, gave her the appearance of a statue, while a small, diamond coronet glistened on her black hair like a milky way.

When he had looked at her for some time, Bernard Grandin replied with a jocular accent of sincere conviction:  “You may well call her beautiful.”  “How old do you think she is?” “Wait a moment.  I can tell you exactly, for I have known her since she was a child, and I saw her make her debut into society when she was quite a girl.  She is ... she is ... thirty ... thirty-six.”  “Impossible!” “I am sure of it.”  “She looks twenty-five.”  “She has had seven children.”  “It is incredible.”  “And what is more, they are all seven alive, as she is a very good mother.  I go to the house, which is a very quiet and pleasant one, occasionally, and she realizes the phenomenon of the family in the midst of the world.”  “How very strange!  And have there never been any reports about her?” “Never.”  “But what about her husband?  He is peculiar, is he not?”

“Yes, and no.  Very likely there has been a little drama between them, one of those little domestic dramas which one suspects, which one never finds out exactly, but which one guesses pretty nearly.”  “What is it?” “I do not know anything about it.  Mascaret leads a very fast life now, after having been a model husband.  As long as he remained a good spouse, he had a shocking temper and was crabbed and easily took offense, but since he has been leading his present, rackety life, he has become quite indifferent; but one would guess that he has some trouble, a worm gnawing somewhere, for he has aged very much.”

Thereupon the two friends talked philosophically for some minutes about the secret, unknowable troubles, which differences of character or perhaps physical antipathies, which were not perceived at first, give rise to in families, and then Roger de Salnis, who was still looking at Madame de Mascaret through his opera-glasses, said:  “It is almost incredible that that woman has had seven children!” “Yes, in eleven years; after which, when she was thirty, she put a stop to her period of production in order to enter into the brilliant period of representation, which does not seem near coming to an end.”  “Poor women!” “Why do you pity them?”

“Why?  Ah! my dear fellow, just consider! eleven years of pregnancy, for such a woman!  What a hell!  All her youth, all her beauty, every hope of success, every poetical ideal of a bright life, sacrificed to that abominable law of reproduction which turns the normal woman into a mere machine for reproduction.”  “What would you have?  It is only nature!”