All of a sudden the dreadful word "adultress" occurred to her. Everything disgusting that the vilest lewdness might impart to the idea of sensual love came crowding into her imagination. Ideas of this sort were doing their worst to tarnish the tender and divine image she had made of Julien and of her happiness in loving him. The future loomed before her in terrible shapes. She saw herself as a despicable woman.

It was a ghastly moment; her soul had crossed into alien territory. That evening she had tasted a happiness unknown to her; now she was plunged into the most atro- cious agony. She had no idea of such suffering; it affected her reason. For an instant she thought of confessing to her husband that she was afraid of falling in love with Julien. It would give her a chance to talk about him. Fortunately, she happened to remember a precept her aunt had once given her, on the eve of her marriage. It had to do with the dangers of confiding in a husband, who is, after all, one's master. Out of unbearable suffering, she kept wringing her hands.

She was being dragged this way and that by painful and conflicting visions. One minute she was afraid of not being loved; the next minute, the horrible idea of crime tormented her as much as if she were slated to be pilloried the next day in the public square with a placard around her neck proclaiming adultery to the whole populace. Mme. de Renal had no experience of life; even fully awake and in full possession of her faculties, she would not have seen any real distinction between being guilty in the sight of God and in being publicly harassed by the noisiest manifestation of popular scorn.