And how perfectly at ease she seemed in her strolling life! With what
self-possession she walked to the front of the stage! Ah! could she have
seen the desperate, terrible glance fixed upon her down there in the
hall, concealed behind a pillar, her smile would have lost that equivocal
placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those wheedling,
languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame Dobson had
ever been able to teach her:

Pauv' pitit Mamz'elle Zizi,
C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li.

Risler had risen, in spite of Planus's efforts. "Sit down! sit down!"
the people shouted. The wretched man heard nothing. He was staring at
his wife.

C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li,

Sidonie repeated affectedly.

For a moment he wondered whether he should not leap on the platform and
kill her. Red flames shot before his eyes, and he was blinded with
frenzy.

Then, suddenly, shame and disgust seized upon him and he rushed from the
hall, overturning chairs and tables, pursued by the terror and
imprecations of all those scandalized bourgeois.