From
slightly greedy as she had been, she became a regular glutton. In our
house there was feasting without end. Whenever I went to sea, she would
entertain the worst women in the place; and there was nothing too good
or too expensive for them. She would get so drunk that she would have to
be put to bed. Well, one night, when she thought me at Rouen, I returned
unexpectedly. I entered, and found her with a man. And such a man, sir!
A miserable looking wretch, ugly, dirty, stinking; shunned by everyone;
in a word the bailiff's clerk. I should have killed him, like the vermin
that he was; it was my right, but he was such a pitiful object. I took
him by the neck and pitched him out of the window, without opening it!
It didn't kill him. Then I fell upon my wife, and beat her until she
couldn't stir."
Lerouge spoke in a hoarse voice, every now and then thrusting his fists
into his eyes.
"I pardoned her," he continued; "but the man who beats his wife and then
pardons her is lost. In the future, she took better precautions, became
a greater hypocrite, and that was all. In the meanwhile, Madame Gerdy
took back her child; and Claudine had nothing more to restrain her.
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