He was madly jealous of these men. She had to repeat to him the story of her past over and over, then he became angry, also sexually very excited, figured how he would revenge himself on his rivals, how he would beat them, box their ears or shoot them down in a duel or cut them up with his sword; his rage against the unfortunate woman grew all the time, he scolded her, called her every bad name, threatened to leave her at once, struck her, and in the end had intercourse with her, experiencing powerful orgasm. Before long he began to be troubled with the uncertainty whether she had told the whole truth. He investigated her past, looking up questionable episodes. A detective was engaged to watch her during his absence and to look up her past. The fellow quickly picked up the gossip of the neighborhood and reported the talk as true. Besides the adventures frankly confessed to him a number of other liaisons were traced, which the woman had failed to mention. She also had to admit that she was older than she had held herself out to be. There followed years of terrible torture and continual torture. First thing in the morning he began to wonder who else among his acquaintances or among strangers may have possessed the woman. He questioned her persistently, his rage growing, he made her take a solemn oath, then he struck her and tried to extract from her a forced confession. In vain she implored him, begging him to realize that she was not responsible for her past, that she did not know him at the time, that she was but a child when she already had to support the whole household and a sick mother; nothing helped, he was implacable. When his investigations led accidentally to the discovery of another man who had not previously figured in the list of her adventures he threw a glass at her head and hurt her so seriously that she was ill several weeks. He sought quarrels with her former sweethearts and challenged them on the least provocation, wounding several in duel, as he was an excellent duellist. Finally the lovers separated. The woman could stand it no longer and threatened to take her life. But, in a few weeks she fell ill and had him called to her sick bed. Another time the reverse occurred. In short—the pair could not keep away from each other. It was the last love of this woman who had lost her early first charms. Through this love she hoped to save herself and either marry or attain the quasi-respectability of a similar state. But he had entered this relationship lightly as he had done in similar cases and he now suddenly found himself entangled in a tight net which isolated him from the world. For he did not dare to go out with her. He always had the unpleasant thought he might meet one of her former lovers,—he even watched the faces of all passers-by to see whether they did not laugh at him.