“Monsieur Gaston du Boys de Lucelles was a scape-grace of good family, who, after having spent all that he had inherited from his father, and having incurred debts by all kinds of doubtful means, had been trying to discover some other way of obtaining money, and he had discovered this method.  He was a good-looking young fellow, and in capital health, but fast; one of those odious race of provincial fast men, and he appeared to me to be a sufficient sort of a husband, who could be got rid of later, by making him an allowance.  He came to the house to pay his addresses, and to strut about before the idiot girl, who, however, seemed to please him.  He brought her flowers, kissed her hands, sat at her feet and looked at her with affectionate eyes; but she took no notice of any of his attentions, and did not make any distinction between him and the other persons who were about her.

“However, the marriage took place, and you may guess how excited my curiosity was.  I went to see Bertha the next day, to try and discover from her looks whether any feelings had been roused in her, but I found her just the same as she was every day, wholly taken up with the clock and dinner, while he, on the contrary, appeared really in love, and tried to rouse his wife’s spirits and affections by little endearments, and such caresses as one bestows on a kitten.  He could think of nothing better.

“I called upon the married couple pretty frequently, and I soon perceived that the young woman knew her husband, and gave him those eager looks which she had hitherto bestowed only on sweet dishes.

“She followed his movements, knew his step on the stairs or in the neighboring rooms, clapped her hands when he came in, and her face was changed, and brightened by the flames of profound happiness, and of desire.

“She loved him with her whole body, and with all her soul, to the very depths of her poor, weak soul, and with all her heart, that poor heart of some grateful animal.  It was really a delightful and innocent picture of simple passion, of carnal and yet modest passion, such as nature had implanted into mankind, before man had complicated and disfigured it, by all the various shades of sentiment.  But he soon grew tired of this ardent, beautiful, dumb creature, and did not spend more than an hour a day with her, thinking it sufficient to devote his rights to her, and she began to suffer in consequence.  She used to wait for him from morning till night, with her eyes on the clock; she did not even look after the meals now, for he took all his away from home, Clermont, Chatel-Guyon, Royat, no matter where, as long as he was not obliged to come home.

“She began to grow thin; every other thought, every other wish, every other expectation and every other confused hope, disappeared from her mind, and the hours during which she did not see him, became hours of terrible suffering to her.  Soon he used frequently not to come home at night; he spent them with women at the casino at Royat, and did not come home until daybreak.  But she never went to bed before he returned.  She remained sitting motionless in an easy chair, with her eyes fixed on the clock, which turned so slowly and regularly round the china face, on which the hours were painted.