Lulled by her own hopes, Hortense believed she had a happy future, and she was talking to her twenty-month-old son in that onomatopoeic langauge which makes children smile, when, about eleven o’clock, the cook, who had not seen Wenceslas go out, showed Stidmann in.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Madame,’ said the artist. ‘Oh, has Wenceslas gone out already?’
‘He’s at his studio.’
‘I came to discuss the work we’re doing together.’
‘I’ll send for him,’ said Hortense, motioning to Stidmann to take a seat.
The young wife, inwardly thanking heaven for this piece of luck, wanted to detain Stidmann in order to hear some details about the previous evening’s party. Stidmann bowed in acknowledgement of the Countess’s courtesy. Madame Steinbock rang, the cook appeared and was told to go to the studio for Monsieur.
‘You must have had a good time last night,’ said Hortense, ‘for Wenceslas didn’t get home till after one in the morning.’
‘A good time? Not exactly,’ replied the artist, who had wanted to do Madame Marneffe the previous evening. ‘One doesn’t have a good time in society unless one has some axe to grind there. That little Madame Marneffe is very clever, but she’s a flirt.’
‘And what did Wenceslas think of her?’ asked poor Hortense, trying to stay calm. ‘He didn’t tell me anything about her.’
‘I’ll only tell you one thing,’ replied Stidmann, ‘and that is that I think she’s a very dangerous woman.’
Hortense turned as pale as a woman in childbirth.
‘So it was really … at Madame Marneffe’s … and not at Chanor’s that you dined … yesterday … with Wenceslas, and he …’
Without knowing what harm he was doing, Stidmann realized that there was something wrong. The Countess did not complete her sentence; she fainted away completely. The artist rang and the maid came in.
When Louise tried to help the Countess to her room, she was seized with the horrible convulsions of a very severe nervous attack.
Stidmann, like all those whose unwitting indiscretion destroys the structure of falsehood erected by a husband for his family, could not believe that his words could have such an effect. He thought the Countess must be in that delicate state of health in which the slightest annoyance becomes a danger.
The cook came in and said, unfortunately in a loud voice, that Monsieur was not in his studio.
In the midst of her attack, the Countess heard this announcement and the convulsions began again.
‘Go and fetch Madame’s mother,’ said Louise to the cook. ‘Run!’
‘If I knew where Wenceslas was, I’d go and tell him,’ said Stidmann in despair.
‘He’s at that woman’s,’ cried poor Hortense. ‘He dressed very differently from the way he does when he goes to his studio.’
Stidmann hurried to Madame Marneffe’s, realizing the truth of this flash of insight, which stemmed from the second sight of passion.
At that moment Valérie was posing as Delilah.
Stidmann, too shrewd to ask for Madame Marneffe, went straight past the porter’s lodge and quickly up to the second floor, reasoning to himself thus: ‘If I ask for Madame Marneffe, she won’t be at home. If I ask bluntly for Steinbock, they’ll laugh in my face. So I’ll go straight to the point.’
Reine appeared when he rang the bell.
‘Tell Monsieur le Comte Steinbock to come at once, his wife is dying!’
Reine, as clever as Stidmann, looked at him rather stupidly.
‘But, Monsieur, I don’t know … what you …’
‘I tell you that my friend Steinbock is here. His wife is dying. It’s a sufficiently serious matter for you to disturb your mistress.’
And Stidmann went away.
‘Oh, he’s there all right,’ he said to himself.
And, indeed, Stidmann, who lingered a few moments in the Rue Vaneau, saw Wenceslas come out, and signed to him to come quickly.
After telling him of the tragedy that was being enacted at the Rue Saint-Dominique, Stidmann scolded Steinbock for not warning him to say nothing about the previous day’s dinner.
‘I’m done for,’ Wenceslas replied, ‘but I forgive you. I quite forgot about our appointment this morning and I made the mistake of not telling you that we were supposed to have dined at Florent’s. But there we are! That Valérie has driven me out of my mind. But, dear fellow, she’s worth as much as fame, she’s worth suffering misfortune for. Oh, she’s … My God! What a dreadful mess I’m in! Give me some advice. What shall I say? What excuses shall I make for myself?’
‘Give you advice? I’ve no idea,’ replied Stidmann. ‘But your wife loves you, doesn’t she? Well then, she’ll believe anything. Anyway, tell her you were coming to see me, while I was going to your house. In that way you’ll at least be able to conceal this morning’s session. Goodbye!’
At the corner of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin, Lisbeth, informed by Reine, hurried after Steinbock and caught up with him, for she was afraid of his Polish naïveté. As she did not want to be compromised, she said a few words to Wenceslas, who, in his joy, kissed her in the middle of the street. She had presumably given the artist a plank to help him bridge his marital strait.