‘A man who loves a woman, who does his very best to win her, who does so and who has her, engages in a very solemn contract both with himself and with her. That’s in the case of a woman like you, I mean, not a woman of easy virtue. The institution of marriage is of great social value, great legal value, too, but it doesn’t seem to me, given the way things usually are, it doesn’t seem to me to have any great moral value. So when a woman is tied by a legal bond to a husband she does not and cannot love, when a woman like that whose heart is still free meets a man whom she does love and gives herself to him and is taken by him, I say the two of them are entering into a commitment to each other more binding, because of the mutual free consent between them, than that of an “I do” in front of an officiating mayor. I believe that if they are both people of honour the commitment they make is closer, stronger and healthier than if they had received all the sacraments on offer elsewhere. That woman risks everything. Precisely because she is well aware of the possibly dire consequences, because she gives all she has, her heart, her body and her soul, because she knows only too well what deprivations are in store for her, what dangers and catastrophes may be round the corner, because she commits this act boldly and fearlessly and is ready to face up to everything, including a husband who has the right to kill her and society that has the power to reject her – because of all these considerations the conjugal infidelity she commits is in my view highly respectable. And it’s for that reason too that her lover in taking her must also take all of these things into consideration and himself forsake all others, come what may. That’s all I have to say. I spoke to you first as a circumspect man ought, someone whose duty it was to warn you. But now you hear me speak simply as a man who loves you and who is yours to command.’

She was radiant, and closed his mouth with her lips, murmuring quietly: ‘Darling, none of it was true. Nothing’s wrong. My husband isn’t in the least bit suspicious. But I wanted to see … I wanted to know what you would do … I suppose I wanted some kind of token … from your heart … a different kind of token from the necklace you sent earlier. And you have given it! Thank you! Thank you! Oh God, I’m so happy!’

THE HORLA1