And a feeling of rage compressed my heart, and I tried to quiet myself.
"'How stupid!' said I to myself; 'there is no reason, none at all.

And why humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by supposing such horrors?
This mercenary violinist, known as a bad man,--shall I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the mother of a family, MY wife?
How silly!' But on the other hand, I said to myself: 'Why should it not happen ?' "Why?
Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name of which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the only thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others desired, this musician among the rest?
He was not married, was in good health (I remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and how eagerly he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was careful of his person, well fed, and not only without principles, but evidently with the principle that one should take advantage of the pleasure that offers itself.

There was a bond between them, music,--the most refined form of sensual voluptuousness.

What was there to restrain them?
Nothing.

Everything, on the contrary, attracted them.