ney dates from the first days of our
marriage; I am indeed ashamed, both of myself and of her.

I make no money! That explains everything, the reproach of her glance,
her admiration for fruitful commonplaces, culminating in the steps she
took but lately to obtain for me I don't know what post in a government
office.

At this, however, I resisted. No defence remains to me but this, a force
of inertia, which yields to no assault, to no persuasion. She may speak
for hours, freeze me with her chilliest smile, my thought ever escapes
her, will always escape her. And we have come to this! Married and
condemned to live together, leagues of distance separate us; and we are
both too weary, too utterly discouraged, to care to make one step that
might draw us together. It is horrible!

[Illustration: p108-119]

[Illustration: p111-122]

ASSAULT WITH VIOLENCE.

MR. PETITBRY, Chamber Counsel.

_To Madame Nina de B., at her Aunt's house, in Moulins_.

Madame, conformably to the wishes of Madame your aunt, I have looked
into the matter in question. I have noted down one by one all the
different points and submitted your grievances to the most scrupulous
investigation. Well, on my soul and conscience, I do not find the
fruit ripe enough, or to speak plainly, I do not consider that you have
sufficient grounds to justify your petition for a judicial separation.
Let us not forget that the French law is a very downright kind of thing,
totally devoid of delicate feeling for nice distinctions. It recognizes
only acts, serious, brutal acts, and unfortunately it is these acts
we lack. Most assuredly I have been deeply touched while reading the
account of the first year of your married life, so very painful to you.
You have paid dearly for the glory of marrying a famous artist, one of
those men in whom fame and adulation develop monstrous egotism, and who
under penalty of shattering the frail and timid life that would attach
itself to theirs, must live alone. Ah! madame, since the commencement of
my career, how many wretched wives have I not beheld in the same cruel
position as yourself! Artists who live only by and for the public, carry
nothing home to their hearth but fatigue from glory, or the melancholy
of their disappointments. An ill-regulated existence, without compass
or rudder, subversive ideas contrary to all social conventionality,
contempt of family life and its happiness, cerebral excitement sought
for in the abus