a gesture or
a word to interrupt him. M. Lecoq, as he listened, reflected. He
asked himself where M. Plantat could have got all these minute
details. Who had written Tremorel's terrible biography? As he
glanced at the papers from which Plantat read, he saw that they
were not all in the same handwriting.

The old justice of the peace pursued the story:

Bertha Lechaillu, though by an unhoped-for piece of good fortune
she had become Madame Sauvresy, did not love her husband. She was
the daughter of a poor country school-master, whose highest ambition
had been to be an assistant teacher in a Versailles school; yet she
was not now satisfied. Absolute queen of one of the finest domains
in the land, surrounded by every luxury, spending as she pleased,
beloved, adored, she was not content. Her life, so well regulated,
so constantly smooth, without annoyances and disturbance, seemed to
her insipid. There were always the same monotonous pleasures,
always recurring each in its season. There were parties and
receptions, horse rides, hunts, drives--and it was always thus!
Alas, this was not the life she had dreamed of; she was born for
more exciting pleasures. She yearned for unknown emotions and
sensations, the unforeseen, abrupt transitions, passions, adventures.
She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she saw him, and her
secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her influence over
him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar, ridiculous.
She thought the simplicity of his manners, silliness. She looked
at him, and saw nothing in him to admire. She did not listen to
him when he spoke, having already decided in her wisdom that he
could say nothing that was not tedious or commonplace. She was angry
that he had not been a wild young man, the terror of his family.

He had, however, done as other young men do. He had gone to Paris
and tried the sort of life which his friend Tremorel led. He had
enough of it in six months, and hastily returned to Valfeuillu, to
rest after such laborious pleasures. The experience cost him a
hundred thousand francs, but he said he did not regret purchasing
it at this price.

Bertha was wearied with the constancy and adoration of her husband.
She had only to express a desire to be at once obeyed, and this
blind submission to all her wishes appeared to her servile in a man.
A man is born, she thought, to command, and not to obey; to be
master, and not slave. She would have pref