Scene + 

I + 

M. de Garelle, alone, lying back in an armchair. + 

Here I am at Cannes, a gay bachelor, which is humorous enough. I’m a bachelor. At Paris I hardly realised it. Away from home, it’s another thing. Upon my word, I’m not complaining about it. + 

And my wife is married again! + 

I wonder if my successor is happy, happier than I am. What sort of a fool must he be to have married her after me! For the matter of that, I was no less a fool for marrying her first. She had her points, however, certain good points⁠ ⁠… physical ones⁠ ⁠… quite remarkably good, but she had serious moral blemishes too. + 

What a sly wench, what a liar, what a flirt she was, and how attractive to men who were not her husband! Was I a cuckold? God, it’s sheer torture to be wondering that from morning to evening, and never to know for sure. + 

What plots and counterplots I laid to watch her, without learning anything! In any case, if I was a cuckold, I’m one no longer, thanks to Naquet. How easy divorce is after all! It cost me ten francs for a riding-whip, and a stiffness in my right arm, not counting the pleasure it gave me to lay on to my heart’s content on a woman whom I strongly suspect of deceiving me. + 

What a thrashing, what a thrashing I gave her!⁠ ⁠… + 

He stands up, laughing, takes a few steps, and sits down again. + 

True, the verdict was given in her favour and against me⁠ ⁠… but what a thrashing! + 

Now I am spending the winter in the South, a gay bachelor. What luck! It’s delightful to travel when you can always hope to meet a new love round every corner. Whom shall I meet, in this hotel, now, or on the Croisette, or perhaps in the street? Where is she, the woman who will love me tomorrow and whose lover I shall be? What will her eyes be like, her lips, her hair, her smile? What will she be like, the first woman who will give me her mouth and be folded in my arms? Dark or fair? Tall or short? Gay or grave? Plump or⁠ ⁠… ? She will be plump! + 

Oh! how I pity people who don’t know, people who no longer know the exquisite pleasure of anticipation! The woman I really love is the Unknown, the Hoped-for, the Desired, she who haunts my heart, whom my eyes have never seen in the flesh, she whose charms are augmented by every ideal perfection. Where is she? In this hotel, behind this door? In one of the rooms of this house, quite near, or still far away? What matter, so long as I desire her, so long as I am certain of meeting her! And I shall assuredly meet her, today or tomorrow, this week or the next, sooner or later; it is absolutely inevitable that I shall find her. + 

And I shall have, in all their charm, the divine joy of the first kiss, the first caresses, all the maddening ecstasy of lovers’ discoveries, all the mystery of the unexplored, as desirable the first day as a conquered maidenhood. Oh! the fools who do not understand the adorable sensation of veils raised for the first time! Oh, the fools who marry⁠ ⁠… since⁠ ⁠… the said veils⁠ ⁠… ought not to be raised too often⁠ ⁠… on the same sight!⁠ ⁠… + 

Here comes a woman. + 

A woman crosses the far end of the corridor, elegant, slender, with a tapering waist. + 

Damn her, she has a figure, and an air. Let’s try to catch sight of⁠ ⁠… her face. + 

She passes near him without seeing him, buried in the depths of the armchair. He murmurs: + 

Hell, it’s my wife! My wife, or rather not my wife, Chantever’s wife. What a charming hussy she is, after all!⁠ ⁠… + 

Am I going to want to marry her again now?⁠ ⁠… Good, she’s sitting down and she’s reading Gil Blas. I’ll lie low. + 

My wife! What a queer feeling it gives me! My wife! As a matter of fact, it’s a year, more than a year, since she ceased to be my wife.⁠ ⁠… Yes, she had her points, physically speaking⁠ ⁠… very fine ones; what a leg! It makes me tremble only to think of it. And what a bosom, oh, perfect! Ouf! In the old days we used to play at drill, left⁠—right⁠—left⁠—right⁠—what a bosom! Left or right, it was superb. + 

But what a holy terror⁠ ⁠… where her morals were concerned! + 

Has she had lovers? What I suffered from that suspicion! Now, pouf! It doesn’t worry me in the least. + 

I have never seen a more seductive creature when she was getting into bed. She had a way of jumping up and slipping between the sheets⁠ ⁠… + 

Good, I am going to fall in love with her again.⁠ ⁠… + 

Suppose I spoke to her?⁠ ⁠… But what shall I say to her? + 

And then she would shout for help, because of the thrashing she got. What a thrashing! Perhaps I was a little brutal after all. + 

Suppose I speak to her? That would be amusing and rather an achievement after all. Damn it, yes, I’ll speak to her, and perhaps if I do it very well⁠ ⁠… We shall soon see.⁠ ⁠… + 