Madame de Bonmont, who had chosen Raoul Marcien from among all others, and who loved him with deep affection, was justified for the space of a few weeks in congratulating herself upon her choice, and in believing herself a happy woman. A tremendous change had taken place in the order of things. Raoul, who had formerly been despised or disliked in all circles of society, who had been rejected by his regiment, cut by his friends, cast off by his relations, expelled from his club; who was known in all the courts of law by reason of the repeated charges of swindling brought against him, had suddenly become cleansed of all stain and purified of all dishonour. Certain events, guessed at, no doubt, and soon to be made clear, had interested the Government on his behalf. It was exceedingly necessary that Raoul should pass for an honourable man. In public and in private, ministers maintained that the power and glory of France and the peace of the whole world depended upon this. His honour was of public utility, and each and all did their best to make it an established fact. The Government worked to this end, as did the lawyers and the newspapers, in fact all good citizens worked joyfully for its establishment. Madame de Bonmont experienced both pleasure and uneasiness at the sudden transformation of her lover into an example and a model for all Frenchmen. She was made for the enjoyment of tranquil joys and pleasures À deux, and all this fame astonished and made her ill at ease. When with Raoul she had the fatiguing sensation of living perpetually in a lift.

Evidences of the esteem in which he was held amazed the simple Elizabeth both by their number and extent. Congratulations, flattering pledges, good-conduct certificates, compliments, and praises poured in from all the bodies known and unknown, and from all the public societies in town and country. They came from the courts, the barracks, the archbishops’ palaces, from the town halls, prÉfectures and great houses of France. They rang out in the street riots, and resounded with the bugles during torchlight processions. His honour shone proudly forth nowadays; it flamed into being like a huge cross at an illuminated fÊte. Whether he went to the Palais de Justice, or to the Moulin-Rouge, he was greeted by the acclamations of the crowd, and princes begged for the honour of touching his hand. And, in spite of all this, Raoul was not at peace. When in the little first-floor apartment hung with sky-blue draperies, intended by Madame de Bonmont to shelter their mutual love, he was always sombre and violent. When he heard his worth and praises shouted in the streets, when he could not listen to the rumbling wheels of an omnibus or the shriek of a tram without knowing that both vehicles contained the supporters and guardians of his honour, he still remained plunged in the bitterest, most dismal thoughts and cherished terrible designs. With frowning brows and clenched teeth he muttered curses; he chewed threats as a sailor chews his tobacco. “Scoundrels! Wretches! I’ll run them through the body!” It may seem almost impossible, but is, nevertheless, true, that he was unconscious of the people’s acclamations; he did not hear them, and the only people he thought of were his few accusers, all of whom were believed to be dispersed, destroyed, and reduced to powder. In his imagination he saw them standing before him, with threatening faces, and at sight of them terror made his yellow eyes start from his head.

His fury was a source of consternation to poor Madame de Bonmont, who only heard hoarse cries of hatred and vengeance coming from the lips which should have given her kisses and words of love. And she was the more surprised and uncomfortable because her lover’s threats were directed as much against friend as against foe. For when he spoke of “running them through,” Raoul never stopped to make the subtle distinction between his defenders and his adversaries. His great mind took in the whole of his country, yes, and the whole of the human race.

He would spend hours every day pacing up and down like a caged lion or panther in the two little rooms that Madame de Bonmont had hung with blue silk and furnished with cosy lounges in the hope of better things. “I’ll do for them!” he muttered as he strode up and down.

Seated in one corner of the big couch she would follow his movements with a timid look, and listen anxiously to his words; not that the sentiments expressed by him appeared to her in any way unworthy of her beloved; instinctively submissive, naturally docile, she admired strength in all its forms, and flattered herself with the vague hope that a man who was capable of such wholesale slaughter, might also, at another time, be capable of wonderful embraces. And sitting at one end of the couch, she waited with half-closed eyes and gently heaving bosom for her Raoul’s mood to change.

She waited in vain! The vociferations continued to make her start:

“I’ll do for them!” Occasionally she would timidly try to appease his fury; in a voice as full as her figure she would murmur:

“But they are doing you full justice, dearest—every one knows you to be a man of honour!”

It may be true that the slender, dark-haired David succeeded in calming the fury of Saul with his shepherd’s lute, the sound of which was thinner than a cricket’s chirrup; Elizabeth, less fortunate than he, vainly offered to Raoul the Nirvana of her sighs and the splendour of her pink and white self. Without daring to look at him, she ventured to say:

“I cannot understand you, mon ami. You have confounded your detractors, the General embraced you in the middle of the street the other day, and the ministers....”

She got no further; he burst out:

“You mention those blackguards to me! They are only trying to find some way of getting at me. They would like to see me a hundred feet under the ground. But they had better be careful! I will devour them piecemeal!”

Then he came back to his dear, familiar thought:

“I must do for them!”

This was his dream:

“I should like to be in an immense marble hall full of people, and to lay about me with a big stick, to strike for days and nights, until the floor, the ceiling, and the walls were red with blood!”

She vouchsafed no reply, but only looked in silence at her breast, where lay the little bunch of violets she had bought for him and dared not offer.

He gave her no more love. It was over and done with. The hardest-hearted man would have taken pity on the pretty, gentle creature who, with her voluptuous body and skin of milk and roses, resembled some big, warm flower in its beauty, neglected, abandoned, and left without care or culture.

She was suffering, and, being piously inclined, she sought a remedy in religion. Thinking that an interview with AbbÉ Guitrel would be of great service to Raoul, she resolved to bring the priest and her lover together.