Marc reflected that there were three forces in presence: man, woman, and the Church, and instead of woman and the Church being arrayed against man, it was necessary that man and woman should be arrayed against the Church. Besides, were not man and wife one? Neither could act without the other, whereas united in flesh and in mind they became invincible, the very force of life, the very embodiment of happiness in the midst of conquered nature. And the one, sole, true solution suddenly became manifest to Marc: woman must be taught, enlightened, she must be set in her rightful place as our equal and our companion, for only the freed woman can free man. At the moment when, calmed and comforted, Marc was regaining the courage he needed to continue fighting, he heard Geneviève come in, and went to join her in the classroom where a little vague light still lingered. He found her standing there, and though the birth of the child she expected was now near at hand, she carried herself so upright, in such an aggressive posture, with such brilliant eyes, that he felt a supreme storm to be imminent. 'Well, are you pleased?' she asked him curtly. 'Pleased with what, my darling?' 'Ah! you don't know then.... So I shall have the pleasure of being the first to give you the great news.... Your heroic efforts have been successful, the news has just arrived by telegraph. The Court of Cassation has decided in favour of the revision of the affair.' Marc raised a cry of intense joy, unwilling to notice the tone of furious irony in which Geneviève had announced the triumph: 'At last! So there are some real judges after all! The innocent man will suffer no longer.... But is the news quite certain?' 'Yes, yes, quite certain, I had it from honourable people to whom it was telegraphed. Yes, the abomination is complete and you may well rejoice.' In Geneviève's quivering bitterness there was an echo of the violent scene which, doubtless, she had just witnessed at her grandmother's house, whither some priest or monk, some friend of Father Crabot's, had hastened to impart the tidings of the catastrophe which imperilled religion. But Marc, as if determined not to understand, opened his arms to his wife, saying: 'Thank you; I could not have had a better-loved messenger. Kiss me!' Geneviève brushed him aside with a gesture of hatred. 'Kiss you!' she cried. 'Why? Because you have been the artisan of an infamous deed; because this criminal victory over religion rejoices you? It is your country, your family, yourself, that you cast into the mire in order to save that filthy Jew, the greatest scoundrel in all the world!'