“You’ve heard of that terrible affair in the Rivoil family?”

And the mother answers: 

“Who would have dreamed of such a thing?  It’s dreadful.”

The children suspected nothing, and arrive in their turn at years of discretion with eyes and mind blindfolded, ignorant of the real side of life, not knowing that people do not think as they speak, and do not speak as they act; or aware that they should live at war, or at all events, in a state of armed peace, with the rest of mankind; not suspecting the fact that the simple are always deceived, the sincere made sport of, the good maltreated.

Some go on till the day of their death in this blind probity and loyalty and honor, so pure-minded that nothing can open their eyes.

Others, undeceived, but without fully understanding, make mistakes, are dismayed, and become desperate, believing themselves the playthings of a cruel fate, the wretched victims of adverse circumstances, and exceptionally wicked men.

The Savignols married their daughter Bertha at the age of eighteen.  She wedded a young Parisian, George Baron by name, who had dealings on the Stock Exchange.  He was handsome, well-mannered, and apparently all that could be desired.  But in the depths of his heart he somewhat despised his old-fashioned parents-in-law, whom he spoke of among his intimates as “my dear old fossils.”

He belonged to a good family, and the girl was rich.  They settled down in Paris.

She became one of those provincial Parisians whose name is legion.  She remained in complete ignorance of the great city, of its social side, its pleasures and its customs—­just as she remained ignorant also of life, its perfidy and its mysteries.

Devoted to her house, she knew scarcely anything beyond her own street; and when she ventured into another part of Paris it seemed to her that she had accomplished a long and arduous journey into some unknown, unexplored city.  She would then say to her husband in the evening: 

“I have been through the boulevards to-day.”

Two or three times a year her husband took her to the theatre.  These were events the remembrance of which never grew dim; they provided subjects of conversation for long afterward.

Sometimes three months afterward she would suddenly burst into laughter, and exclaim: 

“Do you remember that actor dressed up as a general, who crowed like a cock?”

Her friends were limited to two families related to her own.  She spoke of them as “the Martinets” and “the Michelins.”

Her husband lived as he pleased, coming home when it suited him —­sometimes not until dawn—­alleging business, but not putting himself out overmuch to account for his movements, well aware that no suspicion would ever enter his wife’s guileless soul.

But one morning she received an anonymous letter.

She was thunderstruck—­too simple-minded to understand the infamy of unsigned information and to despise the letter, the writer of which declared himself inspired by interest in her happiness, hatred of evil, and love of truth.