Chapter 4

These slumbers, lapped in Champagne and Chartreuse, had soothed and
calmed him, no doubt, for he awoke in a very benevolent frame of
mind. While he was dressing he appraised, weighed, and summed up the
agitations of the past day, trying to bring out quite clearly and fully
their real and occult causes, those personal to himself as well as those
from outside.

It was, in fact, possible that the girl at the beer-shop had had an evil
suspicion--a suspicion worthy of such a hussy--on hearing that only one
of the Roland brothers had been made heir to a stranger; but have
not such natures as she always similar notions, without a shadow of
foundation, about every honest woman? Do they not, whenever they speak,
vilify, calumniate, and abuse all whom they believe to be blameless?
Whenever a woman who is above imputation is mentioned in their presence,
they are as angry as if they were being insulted, and exclaim: "Ah, yes,
I know your married women; a pretty sort they are! Why, they have
more lovers than we have, only they conceal it because they are such
hypocrites. Oh, yes, a pretty sort, indeed!"

Under any other circumstances he would certainly not have understood,
not have imagined the possibility of such an insinuation against his
poor mother, who was so kind, so simple, so excellent. But his spirit
seethed with the leaven of jealousy that was fermenting within him. His
own excited mind, on the scent, as it were, in spite of himself, for all
that could damage his brother, had even perhaps attributed to the tavern
barmaid an odious intention of which she was innocent. It was possible
that his imagination had, unaided, invented this dreadful doubt--his
imagination, which he never controlled, which constantly evaded his will
and went off, unfettered, audacious, adventurous, and stealthy, into
the infinite world of ideas, bringing back now and then some which were
shameless and repulsive, and which it buried in him, in the depths of
his soul, in its most fathomless recesses, like something stolen. His
heart, most certainly, his own heart had secrets from him; and had
not that wounded heart discerned in this atrocious doubt a means of
depriving his brother of the inheritance of which he was jealous? He
suspected himself now, cross-examining all the mysteries of his mind as
bigots search their consciences.

Mme. Rosemilly, though her intelligence was limited, had certainly a
woman's instinct, scent, and subtle intuitions. And this notion had
never entered her head, since she had, with perfect simplicity, drunk
to the blessed memory of the deceased Marechal. She was not the woman to
have done this if she had had the faintest suspicion. Now he doubted no
longer; his involuntary displeasure at his