Ontrouw

Summary

Colonel Brachart's wife Renée is a beautiful and spirited woman. She is with her husband when his new adjutant, Lieutenant Raoul des Vignes of the 10th regiment of hussars, reports to his Colonel. The young woman is not happy with her much older husband and, when she sees Raoul, she falls in love with him. Raoul pretends not to notice her passion. Brachart invites Raoul to visit him and his wife at home. Renée, happy to have the man she loves close to her, manages to get away from her other guests to be alone with Raoul. At first he does not wish to betray his Colonel, but eventually Renée's pleading causes him to kiss her and confess that he loves her.

The lovers are not happy. She loathes living with a man she hates and having to pretend to be indifferent to the man she loves. He, tormented by remorse, decides to submit his resignation. Unaware of what is going on, Brachart does not accept this. Renée, knowing that her husband will be away the whole afternoon, writes a letter to Raoul in which she tells him that she will visit him. When Brachart comes home earlier than expected, he becomes suspicious when he sees that his wife is not there. In Renée's writing desk he finds a bouquet of dried flowers and a letter from Raoul. He goes to Raoul's appartment and confronts the lovers. "Lieutenant", he says, "you have robbed me of my honour and my happiness." Raoul states that he alone is guilty, but Brachart answers that he must not try to defend Renée and challenges him to a duel.

When the duel takes place, Renée watches and, when her husband falls, mortally wounded, she believes that nothing more stands in the way of her happiness together with Raoul. She bends over the body of her husband. For the last time his eyes open and in his look she reads the curse: "You have driven me to my death. You are to blame!"