Protected and counselled by her mother, whom she had taken to live with
us, on the pretence of looking after Jacques, she managed to deceive me
for more than a year. I thought she had given up her bad habits, but not
at all; she lived a most disgraceful life. My house became the resort of
all the good-for-nothing rogues in the country, for whom my wife brought
out bottles of wine and brandy, whenever I was away at sea, and they got
drunk promiscuously. When money failed, she wrote to the count or his
mistress, and the orgies continued. Occasionally I had doubts which
disturbed me; and then without reason, for a simple yes or no, I would
beat her until I was tired, and then I would forgive her, like a coward,
like a fool. It was a cursed life. I don't know which gave me the most
pleasure, embracing her or beating her. My neighbors despised me, and
turned their backs on me; they believed me an accomplice or a willing
dupe. I heard, afterwards, that they believed I profited by my wife's
misconduct; while in reality she paid her lovers. At all events, people
wondered where all the money came from that was spent in my house. To
distinguish me from a cousin of mine, also named Lerouge, they tacked
an infamous word on to my name.
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