We were on somewhat intimate terms with Mr. and Mrs. Y***s***e, I had known her in her youth, but her husband only since their marriage of about six years previously. It was a most unlucky union. She was an intellectual, charming, beautiful woman and had married him thinking it a wonderful match, for she was poor, though a born thoroughbred lady. He was a big, handsome man, a manufacturer, and very rich; but within a year after their marriage he had developed a host of vices, among them gambling and drunkenness. He neglected her, though he spoke of her in the highest terms, and kept up a splendid establishment. I knew that he frequented gay women, and that his drunkenness and whorings were driving him toward ruin and imbecility. Things were of course kept as quiet as they could be by the wife, but it became known among friends that he often went to bed drunk, and had even pissed the bed.
His wife took a huge disgust at him. They, I had heard, did not sleep together often, and although they went out together as man and wife, they led an unhappy existence at home. “Poor Mrs. Y***s****e!” were the terms usually applied to her. She kept up appearances, went much into society, gave splendid dinners and entertainments at which her husband was frequently absent. Chagrin told on her, her face assumed a pensive, sad, and even peevish expression; and then some people said she was ill-tempered, and had driven her husband into evil courses. It was false, for I had heard her husband, — whom I could not bear, — say how good she was, and bewail his own bad habits which he said he could not help, — they conquered him.
I met her out frequently, most frequently at houses where she was without her husband, and I without my curse, though sometimes otherwise. My domestic troubles were known to her, hers to me. There might have been some secret sympathy on this account between us. All I know is that I was sorry for her, and wondered how such a lovely creature got on with a man of such brutal, beastly habits. Her manner to me had always been soft and winning, chance had at dinner-parties often assigned her to me. “I'm so glad to take you in to dinner,” said I one night just before the time I am going to speak of. “So am I,” said she, “I've more pleasure in talking to you than to any one of our acquaintance.” Whenever we had met I had seen her eyes following me, yet not the shadow of voluptuous- ness had been shown, nor any improper advance had been made by her. Delighted with the hug that the waltz gave an occasion for, and the squeeze of the hand which the dance sometimes permits, yet a lustful idea had never entered my head about her, though unconsciously I always was looking at her whenever we met.
We had a habit of asking after each other, as if mutually conscious that in our homes we had troubled lives; yet we never complained to each other, though often we made slightly bitter remarks. There was a veiled meaning in what we said, but nothing in the slightest degree improper.
