"On the ninth day, while Rose was undressing me, she said to me with a timid air: 'It happened this morning, Madame.' I was rather surprised, or rather overcome even, not at the part itself, but at the way in which she told me, and I stammered out: 'And ... and ... it went off well?' 'Oh! yes, very well, Madame. For the last three days he has been pressing me, but I did not wish matters to proceed too quickly. You will tell me when you want us to be caught, Madame.' 'Yes, certainly. Here!... let us say Thursday.' 'Very well, Madame, I shall grant nothing more until then, so as to keep Monsieur on the alert.' 'You are sure not to fail?' 'Oh! quite sure, Madame. I will excite him, so as to make him be there at the very moment which you may appoint.' 'Let us say five o'clock, then.' 'Very well, Madame, and where?' 'Well ... in my bedroom.' 'Very good, Madame, in your bedroom.' "You will understand what I did then, my dear. I went and fetched Mamma and Papa first of all, and then my uncle d'Orvelin, the President, and Monsieur Raplet, the Judge, my husband's friend. I had not told them what I was going to show them, but I made them all go on tiptoe as far as the door of my room. I waited until five o'clock exactly, and oh! how my heart beat! I had made the porter come upstairs as well, so as to have an additional witness! And then ... and then at the moment when the clock began to strike, I opened the door wide.... Ah! ah! ah! Here he was evidently, ... it was quite evident, my dear.... Oh! what a face!... if you had only seen his face!... And he turned round, the idiot! Oh! how funny he looked.... I laughed, I laughed.... And papa was angry and wanted to give my husband a beating.... And the porter, a good servant, helped him to dress himself ... before us ... before us.... He buttoned his braces for him ... what a joke it was!... As for Rose, she was perfect, absolutely perfect.... She cried ... oh! she cried very well. She is an invaluable girl.... If you ever want her, don't forget! "And here I am.... I came immediately to tell you of the affair ... directly. I am free. Long live divorce!" And she began to dance in the middle of the drawing-room, while the little baroness, who was thoughtful and vexed, said: "Why did you not invite me to see it?" BELLFLOWER[17] How strange those old recollections are which haunt us, without our being able to get rid of them! This one is so very old that I cannot understand how it has clung so vividly and tenaciously to my memory. Since then I have seen so many sinister things, which were either affecting or terrible, that I am astonished at not being able to pass a single day without the face of Mother Bellflower recurring to my mind's eye, just as I knew her formerly, now so long ago, when I was ten or twelve years old.