Act of Passion by Georges Simenon

burning.
    'You should make inquiries at La Roche-sur-Yon.'
    The truth of the matter is that I had been a widower now for almost two years, and my mother thought it prudent to get me married again. She couldn't eternally hire obliging maids who, one by one, would become engaged or would go to the city where they could earn more money.
    'There's no hurry but you might begin thinking about it... As for me, you understand, I am happy here and I shall be happy anywhere...'
    I also think that Mama hated to see me in plus-fours and heavy boots all the time, like my father, spending practically all my free time out hunting.
    I was her chick, your Honour, but I was not aware of it. I was a huge chick, six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds, a monstrous chick, bursting with health and strength and obeying his mother like a little boy.
    I am not blaming her. She has worn herself out trying to protect me. She is not the only one.
    It even makes me wonder, sometimes, if I wasn't marked with a sign that women - certain women - recognized, and that has made them want to protect me against myself.
    That is nonsense, of course. But looking back on one's life one is tempted to say:
    'That happened just as if...'
    There is no question that Mama, after the incident of the little bitch, was frightened. She was well versed in such matters, her husband having been regarded as the most rabid skirt-chaser of the county. How many times would some neighbour come to her saying:
    'My poor Clemence, it's your husband again - did you know that he's got the Charreau girl with child?'
    For my father was always, quite shamelessly, getting them with child, ready later on, if necessary, to sell another parcel of land. He was not particular, young or old, prostitutes or virgins.
    And that, in effect, was the reason for getting me married again.
     
    I have never protested. Not only have I never protested, but I have never been conscious of being held in leash. And that, as you will see, is very important. I am not a rebel, I am just the opposite.
    All my life, I think I have told you this many times before and I repeat it, all my life I have wanted to do what was right, simply, calmly, for the satisfaction of duty done.
    Does this satisfaction have a bitter after-taste? That is another question. I should rather not answer it right away. Often, towards evening, I have found myself looking up at a colourless sky - a sky washed out, as it were - and thinking of my father lying at the foot of the haystack.
    Don't tell me that because he drank and ran after women he was not doing his best. He was doing the best he could, the best allowed him.
    As for me, I was only his son. I represented the second generation. As you represent the third. And if I talk about myself in the past tense, it is because, now that I am on the other side, I have gone so far beyond all such contingencies!
    For years and years, I did everything that was expected of me, without reluctance, with a minimum of cheating. I was a conscientious country doctor notwithstanding the incident of the little bitch.
    And I even think I am a good doctor. When I am with my more learned or more solemn colleagues, I joke or am silent. I don't read the medical reviews. I don't go to medical conventions. Confronted by a disease, I am sometimes embarrassed and I make up an excuse for going into the next room to consult my textbook.
    But I have a flair for disease. I hunt it down as a dog hunts down game. I smell it. The very first day I saw you in your office at the Palais de Justice, I ...
    You are going to laugh at me. All right! I shall tell you anyhow: look out for your gall bladder! And forgive this sudden professional vanity, or rather, plain vanity. Can't I have a little something left, as I used to say when I was a child.
    All the more so, since we are now coming to Armande, my second wife, whom you saw on the witness stand.
    She was admirable, everybody said so, and I speak without the least irony.