Only six months remained before the deadline at which the million was to be donated to charity. Little by little, Léopold’s attitude towards his wife changed. Now it was he who had become the aggressor, making veiled insinuations designed to hurt and referring mysteriously to other fellows’ wives who really knew how to help a husband’s career. From time to time he would report the unexpected rise in fortune of some secretary or other: ‘Young Ravinot … only a copy clerk five years ago … Look at him now, deputy head of section …’

Madame Bonnin would retort: ‘Unlike you of course, completely useless as usual …’

Léopold would shrug his shoulders. ‘Ah, well of course he’s got an intelligent wife, that’s the thing. She knows how to get round the head of department. She can get anything she wants. If you want to get on in life you can’t let things get on top of you.’

What exactly did he mean? What did she take him to mean? What was this all about? They each had a calendar on which they marked off the days leading up to the fateful date. Every week they felt an increasingly mad, desperate rage and such total exasperation that they would have been capable, if necessary, of committing any crime in the world.

But what did happen was that one morning Madame Bonnin, her eyes shining and her face radiant, placed her two hands on her husband’s shoulders and looking steadily and joyfully deep into his soul said quietly: ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

His heart leapt so that he nearly fell over backwards. He seized his wife in his arms, showered her with kisses, sat her on his knee and hugged her again and again like an adored child till finally he gave way to his emotion, wept and sobbed.

Two months later there was no longer any doubt. He took her to a doctor to have her condition attested to and took the certificate to the notary who held the will. This representative of the law declared that since the child existed, born or unborn, he acceded and would defer the execution of the will until the end of the pregnancy.

A boy was born. Following an ancient royal tradition they called him Dieudonné.2

They became rich.

Then one night when Monsieur Bonnin came home for a dinner at which Frédéric Morel was to be their guest his wife said simply:

‘I have just asked our friend Frédéric not to set foot in this house again. He has behaved … inappropriately … towards me.’

He looked at her for a second with a grateful smile, then opened his arms. She flew into them and the couple embraced over and over again like the dear husband and wife that they were, so tender, so close and so honourable towards each other.