ther. Everything went
on free from control. In growing to womanhood, Adelaide had retained the
strangeness which had been taken for shyness when she was fifteen. It
was not that she was insane, as the people of the Faubourg asserted,
but there was a lack of equilibrium between her nerves and her blood,
a disorder of the brain and heart which made her lead a life out of
the ordinary, different from that of the rest of the world. She was
certainly very natural, very consistent with herself; but in the eyes of
the neighbours her consistency became pure insanity. She seemed
desirous of making herself conspicuous, it was thought she was wickedly
determined to turn things at home from bad to worse, whereas with great
naivete she simply acted according to the impulses of her nature.

Ever since giving birth to her first child she had been subject to
nervous fits which brought on terrible convulsions. These fits recurred
periodically, every two or three months. The doctors whom she consulted
declared they could do nothing for her, that age would weaken the
severity of the attacks. They simply prescribed a dietary regimen of
underdone meat and quinine wine. However, these repeated shocks led to
cerebral disorder. She lived on from day to day like a child, like
a fawning animal yielding to its instincts. When Macquart was on his
rounds, she passed her time in lazy, pensive idleness. All she did for
her children was to kiss and play with them. Then as soon as her lover
returned she would disappear.

Behind Macquart's hovel there was a little yard, separated from the
Fouques' property by a wall. One morning the neighbours were much
astonished to find in this wall a door which had not been there the
previous evening. Before an hour had elapsed, the entire Faubourg had
flocked to the neighbouring windows. The lovers must have worked the
whole night to pierce the opening and place the door there. They could
now go freely from one house to the other. The scandal was revived,
everyone felt less pity for Adelaide, who was certainly the disgrace
of the suburb; she was reproached more wrathfully for that door, that
tacit, brutal admission of her union, than even for her two illegitimate
children. "People should at least study appearances," the most tolerant
women would say. But Adelaide did not understand what was meant by
studying appearances. She was very happy, very proud of her door; she
had assisted Macquart to knock the stones from