Suddenly sobs from my throat. … I fling myself on the couch, biting the cushion, and cry and cry! … Minutes, hours pass and I am still crying! … Ah! Juliette, vile Juliette! … Why did you do that? … Why? … Could you not say to me: “Here now, you are not rich anymore and all I want of you is money. … Leave me!” That would have been cruel, it might have meant my death. … But what of it? … It would have been better. … How can I look into your face now? … How can our mouths ever touch each other? … There is now between us the thick wall of that wicked place! … Ah! Juliette! … Wretched Juliette! …
I remember her going out. … I recollect everything! … I recall how she was dressed in her gray dress, the shadow of her hand dancing strangely on the back of her neck. … I see her as clearly as if she were before me now, and even more so. … She was sad, she was crying. … I am sure it was not mere imagination on my part … she was actually crying, for my cheek was wet with her tears! Whom was she crying over, me or herself? Ah! … who knows? … I remember. … I said to her: “Don’t go out, my Juliette! …” She replied: “Embrace me closely, very closely, more closely yet! …” And her caresses had the passion of despair in them, a kind of shrivelling grip, a sort of fear as if she had wanted to cling to me, to seek tremblingly protection in my arms. … I can see her eyes, her beseeching look. … They seemed to implore me: “Something abominable is drawing me on. … Hold me back! … I am close to your heart … do not let me go! …” And instead of taking her in my arms, carrying her away, hiding her and loving her so as to make her giddy with happiness, I opened up my arms and let her go! … She sought refuge in my love, and I denied it to her. … She cried to me: “I adore you, I adore you! …” And I stood there like a fool, amazed as is a child at the unexpected flapping of the wings of a captive bird that has just escaped. … I did not understand that sadness, those tears, those caresses, those words more tender than usual, that trembling. … It is only now that I hear those silent, melancholy words: “My dear Jean, I am a poor little woman, a little foolish and so weak! … I had no idea of anything big or worth while. … Who was there to teach me what chastity, duty, virtue meant! … When I was a child yet, evil surroundings contaminated me, and vice was taught to me by the very people who were supposed to be my guardians. … Still I am not wicked and I love you. … I love you more than I ever loved you! … My beloved Jean, you are strong, you know many beautiful things which I don’t. … Well, protect me! … An overpowering desire draws me there. … The trouble is I have seen too much jewelry, too many gowns and other exquisite and expensive trifles which you can’t buy me any longer but which others have promised to get me! … I have an instinctive feeling that it’s wrong and that it will cause you suffering. … Well, subdue me! … I ask for no other chance than to be good and virtuous. … Teach me how! … Beat me … if I resist! …”
Poor Juliette! … It seems to me that she is down on her knees before me, with clasped hands. … Tears are rolling from her eyes, from her big eyes downcast and sweet. … Tears are streaming from her eyes endlessly as they used to stream from the eyes of my mother in the past. … And at the thought that I wanted to kill her, that I wanted to disfigure her delightful and sorrowful face through horrible mutilation, I am seized with remorse and my wrath gives way to pity. … She goes on. … “Forgive me! … Oh! my Jean you must forgive me. … It is not my fault, I assure you. … Try to recall. … Did you ever warn me, even once? … Did you ever show me even once the way which I should follow? Through weakness, through fear of losing me, through excessive and criminal kindness, you have yielded to all my whims, even the most wicked ones. … How could I know that it was wrong, when you have never told me anything? … Instead of stopping me on the brink of the precipice where I was headed, you yourself have pushed me into it. … What example have you placed before my eyes? … Whither have you led me? … Have you ever tried to take me out of this alarming atmosphere of debauchery? … Why didn’t you chase Jesselin or Gabrielle out of our house, all those degenerates whose very presence only helped to increase my wickedness? … To breathe into me a particle of your own soul, to send a ray of light into the darkness of my brains—that is what you should have done! … Yes, you should have given me another life, you should have made me over again! … I am guilty, my Jean! … And I am so ashamed of myself that I can never hope to be able to atone for the infamy of this evil hour even with a whole life of sacrifice and repentance. … But you! … Is your conscience satisfied that you have done your duty? … I dread not the expiation of my sins. … On the contrary I welcome it, I want it. … But you? … Can you sit in judgment over a crime which I admit I have committed, but in which you, too, have had a part since you have not done anything to prevent it! … My dear beloved, listen to me. … This body which
