“Look at this theatre.  Is there not here a human world created by us, unforeseen and unknown to eternal fate, intelligible to our minds alone, a sensual and intellectual distraction, which has been invented solely by and for that discontented and restless little animal, man?

“Look at that woman, Madame de Mascaret.  God intended her to live in a cave, naked or wrapped up in the skins of wild animals.  But is she not better as she is?  But, speaking of her, does any one know why and how her brute of a husband, having such a companion by his side, and especially after having been boorish enough to make her a mother seven times, has suddenly left her, to run after bad women?”

Grandin replied:  “Oh! my dear fellow, this is probably the only reason.  He found that raising a family was becoming too expensive, and from reasons of domestic economy he has arrived at the same principles which you lay down as a philosopher.”

Just then the curtain rose for the third act, and they turned round, took off their hats and sat down.

IV

The Comte and Comtesse Mascaret were sitting side by side in the carriage which was taking them home from the Opera, without speaking but suddenly the husband said to his wife:  “Gabrielle!”

“What do you want?”

“Don’t you think that this has lasted long enough?”

“What?”

“The horrible punishment to which you have condemned me for the last six years?”

“What do you want?  I cannot help it.”

“Then tell me which of them it is.”

“Never.”

“Think that I can no longer see my children or feel them round me, without having my heart burdened with this doubt.  Tell me which of them it is, and I swear that I will forgive you and treat it like the others.”

“I have not the right to do so.”

“Do you not see that I can no longer endure this life, this thought which is wearing me out, or this question which I am constantly asking myself, this question which tortures me each time I look at them?  It is driving me mad.”

“Then you have suffered a great deal?” she said.

“Terribly.  Should I, without that, have accepted the horror of living by your side, and the still greater horror of feeling and knowing that there is one among them whom I cannot recognize and who prevents me from loving the others?”

“Then you have really suffered very much?” she repeated.

And he replied in a constrained and sorrowful voice: 

“Yes, for do I not tell you every day that it is intolerable torture to me?  Should I have remained in that house, near you and them, if I did not love them?  Oh!  You have behaved abominably toward me.  All the affection of my heart I have bestowed upon my children, and that you know.  I am for them a father of the olden time, as I was for you a husband of one of the families of old, for by instinct