her revenge,
and only once, because he was really too stupid and too jealous.

The little Baroness de Grangerie had thrown the book which she was
reading on the sofa, and looked at Annette curiously. She was already
laughing herself, and at last she asked:

"What have you been doing now?" "Oh! ... my dear!... my dear! it is too
funny ... too funny.... Just fancy ... I am saved!... saved!...
saved!"... "How do you mean, saved!" "Yes, saved!" "From what?" "From my
husband, my dear, saved! Delivered! free! free! free!" "How free? in
what?" "In what? Divorce! Yes, a divorce! I have my divorce!" "You are
divorced?" "No, not yet; how stupid you are! One does not get divorced
in three hours! But I have my proofs that he has deceived me ... caught
in the very act ... just think!... in the very act.... I have got him
tight...." "Oh! do tell me all about it! So he deceived you?" "Yes, that
is to say no ... yes and no ... I do not know. At any rate, I have
proofs, and that is the chief thing." "How did you manage it?"

"How did I manage it?... This is how! I have been energetic, very
energetic. For the last three months he has been odious, altogether
odious, brutal, coarse, a despot, in one word, vile. So I said to
myself: This cannot last, I must have a divorce! But how? for it is not
very easy? I tried to make him beat me, but he would not. He put me out
from morning till night, made me go out when I did not wish to, and to
remain at home when I wanted to dine out; he made my life unbearable for
me from one week's end to the other, but he never struck me.

"Then I tried to find out whether he had a mistress. Yes, he had one,
but he took a thousand precautions in going to see her, and they could
never be caught together. Guess what I did then?" "I cannot guess." "Oh!
you could never guess. I asked my brother to procure me a photograph of
the creature." "Of your husband's mistress?" "Yes. It cost Jacques
fifteen louis, the price of an evening, from seven o'clock until
midnight, including a dinner, at three louis an hour, and he obtained
the photograph into the bargain." "It appears to me that he might have
obtained it anyhow by means of some artifice and without ... without ...
without being obliged to take the original at the same time." "Oh! she
is pretty, and Jacques did not mind the least. And then, I wanted some
details about her, physical details about her figure, her breast, her
complexion, a thousand things, in fact."