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140 stabbing her with public contempt that a nineteenth-century husband kills his wife. It is by shutting against her the doors of all the drawing-rooms.

When Madame de Rênal returned to her room, her feeling of danger was vividly awakened. She was shocked by the disorder in which she found it. The locks of all the pretty little boxes had been broken. Many planks in the floor had been lifted up. "He would have no pity on me," she said to herself. "To think of his spoiling like this, this coloured wood floor which he likes so much; he gets red with rage whenever one of his children comes into it with wet shoes, and now it is spoilt for ever." The spectacle of this violence immediately banished the last scruples which she was entertaining with respect to that victory which she had won only too rapidly.

Julien came back with the children a little before the dinner-bell. Madame de Rênal said to him very drily at dessert when the servant had left the room:

"You have told me about your wish to go and spend a fortnight at Verrières. M. de Rênal is kind enough to give you a holiday. You can leave as soon as you like, but the childrens' exercises will be sent to you every day so that they do not waste their time." "I shall certainly not allow you more than a week," said M. de Rênal in a very bitter tone. Julien thought his visage betrayed the anxiety of a man who was seriously harassed.

"He has not yet decided what line to take," he said to his love during a moment when they were alone together in the drawing-room.

Madame de Rênal rapidly recounted to him all she had done since the morning.

"The details are for to-night," she added with a smile.

"Feminine perversity," thought Julien, "What can be the pleasure, what can be the instinct which induces them to deceive us."

"I think you are both enlightened and at the same time blinded by your love," he said to her with some coldness. "Your conduct to-day has been admirable, but is it prudent for us to try and see each other to-night? This house is paved with enemies. Just think of Elisa's passionate hatred for me."