"Society's been laughing over it, and your apparent appreciation of it,
the best part of the season."
"My what?"
"Your apparent enjoyment of the performance."
And then she went quietly out of the room and shut the door gently behind
her. But directly the door was shut she became another woman. Her mouth
was distorted, her eyes shone, she rushed upstairs to her bedroom, locked
herself in, threw herself down on the bed and pressed her face furiously
against the coverlet.
The fact that she had spoken at last to her husband of the insult she had
been silently enduring, the insult he had made so far more bitter than it
need have been by his conduct, had broken down something within her, some
wall of pride behind which had long been gathering a flood of feeling.
She cried now frantically, with a sort of despairing rage, cried and
crushed herself against the bed, beating the pillows with her hands,
grinding her teeth.
What was the use of it all? What was the use of being beautiful, of being
young, rich? What was the use of having married a man she had loved? What
was the use? What was the use?
"What's the use?" she sobbed the words out again and again.
For the man was a fool, Fritz was a fool. She thought of him at that
moment as half-witted. For he saw nothing, nothing. He was a blind man
led by his animal passions, and when at last he was forced to see, when
she came and, as it were, lifted his eyelids with her fingers, and said
to him, "Look! Look at what has been done to me!" he could only be angry
for himself, because the insult had attained him, because she happened to
be his wife.
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