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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 93
it came from the Baroness. It was a rather curt request
to call and see her husband, who, she said, was laid up
with a cold. She begged me to let them have news of
me. It was impossible to make further excuses, and so
I went.
The Baroness did not look well, and the slightly indis-
posed Baron seemed bored. He was in bed, and I was
asked to go and see him. The sight of this Holy of
Holies, which I had been spared up to now, excited my
instinctive repugnance ; this sharing of a common room by
a married couple, this perpetual presence of a witness on
the thousand occasions which demand privacy, revolted
me. The large bed which the Baron occupied, brazenly
proclaimed the intimacies of their union ; the heap of
pillows, piled up by the side of the sick man, boldly
marked the wife’s place. The dressing-table, the wash-
stands, the towels, everything struck me as being unclean,
and I had to make myself blind to overcome my disgust.
After a few words at the foot end of the bed, the
Baroness invited me to take a glass of liqueur in the
drawing-room, and, as if she had divined them, she gave
expression to my thoughts as soon as we were alone. In
short, disjointed sentences she poured out her heart to me.
’’Isn’t it wretched? "
"What? "
"You know what I mean. ... A woman’s existence:
without an object in life, without a future, without
occupation. It’s killing me !
"
"But your child, Baroness! It will soon be time to
begin her education. . . . And she may have brothers
and sisters. . .
."
’ ’
I will have no more children ! Am I in the world
for the sole purpose of being a nurse?
"
"Not a nurse, but a mother in the highest meaning
of the word, equal to her task."
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