Part 2 (1/2)

Nevertheless the first thing I did when I was able to leave my room was to visit my mistress. I found her alone, seated in the corner of the room with an expression of sorrow on her face and an appearance of general disorder in her surroundings. I overwhelmed her with violent reproaches; I was intoxicated with despair. In a paroxysm of grief I fell on the bed and gave free course to my tears.

”Ah! faithless one! wretch!” I cried between my sobs, ”you knew that it would kill me. Did the prospect please you? What have I done to you?”

She threw her arms around my neck, saying that she had been seduced, that my rival had intoxicated her at that fatal supper, but that she had never been his; that she had abandoned herself in a moment of forgetfulness; that she had committed a fault but not a crime; but that if I would not pardon her, she, too, would die. All that sincere repentance has of tears, all that sorrow has of eloquence, she exhausted to console me; pale and distressed, her dress deranged and her hair falling over her shoulders she kneeled in the middle of her chamber; never have I seen anything so beautiful and I shuddered with horror as my senses revolted at the sight.

I went away crushed, scarcely able to direct my tottering steps. I wished never to see her again; but in a quarter of an hour I returned. I do not know what desperate resolve I had formed; I experienced a dull desire to possess her once more, to drain the cup of tears and bitterness to the dregs and then to die with her. In short, I abhorred her and I idolized her; I felt that her love was my ruin, but that to live without her was impossible. I mounted the stairs like a flash; I spoke to none of the servants, but, familiar with the house, opened the door of her chamber.

I found her seated calmly before her toilet-table, covered with jewels; she held in her hand a piece of crepe which she pa.s.sed gently over her cheeks. I thought I was dreaming; it did not seem possible that this was the woman I had left, just fifteen minutes before, overwhelmed with grief, abased to the floor; I was as motionless as a statue. She, hearing the door open, turned her head and smiled:

”Is it you?” she said.

She was going to the ball and was expecting my rival. As she recognized me, she compressed her lips and frowned.

I started to leave the room. I looked at her bare neck, lithe and perfumed, on which rested her knotted hair confined by a jeweled comb; that neck, the seat of vital force, was blacker than Hades; two s.h.i.+ning tresses had fallen there and some light silvern hairs balanced above it.

Her shoulders and neck, whiter than milk, displayed a heavy growth of down. There was in that knotted head of hair something indescribably immodest which seemed to mock me when I thought of the disorder in which I had seen her a moment before. I suddenly stepped up to her and struck that neck with the back of my hand. My mistress gave vent to a cry of terror, and fell on her hands, while I hastened from the room.

When I reached my room I was again attacked by fever and was obliged to take to my bed. My wound had reopened and I suffered great pain.

Desgenais came to see me and I told him what had happened. He listened in silence, then paced up and down the room as though undecided as to his course. Finally he stopped before my bed and burst out laughing.

”Is she your first mistress?” he asked.

”No!” I replied, ”she is my last.”

Toward midnight, while sleeping restlessly, I seemed to hear in my dreams a profound sigh. I opened my eyes and saw my mistress standing near my bed with arms crossed, looking like a specter. I could not restrain a cry of fright, believing it to be an apparition conjured up by my diseased brain. I leaped from my bed and fled to the farther end of the room; but she followed me.

”It is I!” said she; putting her arms around me she drew me to her.

”What do you want of me?” I cried. ”Leave me! I fear I shall kill you!”

”Very well, kill me!” she said. ”I have deceived you, I have lied to you, I am an infamous wretch and I am miserable; but I love you, and I can not live without you.”

I looked at her; how beautiful she was! Her body was quivering; her eyes languid with love and moist with voluptuousness; her bosom was bare, her lips burning. I raised her in my arms.

”Very well,” I said, ”but before G.o.d who sees us, by the soul of my father, I swear that I will kill you and that I will die with you.”

I took a knife from the table and placed it under the pillow.

”Come, Octave,” she said, smiling and kissing me, ”do not be foolish.

Come, my dear, all these horrors have unsettled your mind; you are feverish. Give me that knife.”

I saw that she wished to take it.

”Listen to me,” I then said; ”I do not know what comedy you are playing, but as for me I am in earnest. I have loved you as only a man can love and to my sorrow I love you still. You have just told me that you love me, and I hope it is true; but, by all that is sacred, if I am your lover to-night, no one shall take my place to-morrow. Before G.o.d, before G.o.d,”

I repeated, ”I would not take you back as my mistress, for I hate you as much as I love you. Before G.o.d, if you consent to stay here to-night I will kill you in the morning.”

When I had spoken these words I fell into a delirium. She threw her cloak over her shoulders and fled from the room.

When I told Desgenais about it he said: