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our marriage it was tacitly decided between us that no intellectual
community was possible, and we made no further attempts at it. As to
the simplest objects, we each held obstinately to our own opinions. With
strangers we talked upon the most varied and most intimate matters, but
not with each other. Sometimes, in listening to my wife talk with others
in my presence, I said to myself: 'What a woman! Everything that she
says is a lie!' And I was astonished that the person with whom she was
conversing did not see that she was lying. When we were together; we
were condemned to silence, or to conversations which, I am sure, might
have been carried on by animals.
"'What time is it? It is bed-time. What is there for dinner to-day?
Where shall we go? What is there in the newspaper? The doctor must be
sent for, Lise has a sore throat.'
"Unless we kept within the extremely narrow limits of such conversation,
irritation was sure to ensue. The presence of a third person relieved
us, for through an intermediary we could still communicate. She probably
believed that she was always right. As for me, in my own eyes, I was a
saint beside her.
"
The periods of what we call love arrived as often as formerly. They
were more brutal, without refinement, without ornament; but they were
short, and generally followed by periods of irritation without cause,
irritation fed by the most trivial pretexts. We had spats about the
coffee, the table-cloth, the carriage, games of cards,--trifles, in
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