A Life (the Humble Truth). Guy de Maupassant

      Day dawned. Julien awoke, yawned, stretched, looked at his wife, smiled and asked: “Did you sleep well, darling?”

      She noticed that he now said “thou,” and she replied, bewildered, “Why, yes. And you?” “Oh, very well,” he answered. And turning toward her, he kissed her and then began to chat quietly. He set before her plans of living, with the idea of economy, and this word occurring several times, astonished Jeanne. She listened without grasping the meaning of his words, looked at him, but was thinking of a thousand things that passed rapidly through her mind hardly leaving a trace.

      The clock struck eight. “Come, we must get up,” he said. “It would look ridiculous for us to be late.” When he was dressed he assisted his wife with all the little details of her toilet, not allowing her to call Rosalie. As they left the room he stopped. “You know, when we are alone, we can now use ‘thou,’ but before your parents it is better to wait a while. It will be quite natural when we come back from our wedding journey.”

      She did not go down till luncheon was ready. The day passed like any ordinary day, as if nothing new had occurred. There was one man more in the house, that was all.