“Tell Madame,” I shouted, “tell Madame that I want to see her immediately, I want to speak to her. Also tell her that if she does not come out I’ll go and find her myself, I’ll drag her out of her bed, do you hear! Tell her. …”
Mother Souchard, pale and trembling, stammered out:
“Why, my poor Monsieur Mintié, Madame isn’t in there. Madame has not come back. …”
“Take care, you old sorceress! Don’t try to make a fool out of me! And do as I tell you or I’ll kill and smash everybody and everything—Juliette, you, the furniture, the house.”
The old servant raised her arms to the ceiling in bewilderment.
“I swear to you by the Lord! She has not come back yet, Monsieur Mintié! Go into her bedroom and see for yourself! I am telling you!”
In two bounds I was in the bedroom … the bedroom was empty … the bed had not been touched. Mother Souchard followed every step I made, repeating:
“See, Monsieur Mintié! See! Because you are no longer together. At this hour! …”
I passed into the dressing room. Everything was in order just as it had been when we used to come home late at night. Juliette’s things were lying on the sofa, a boiler full of water was on the gas stove.
“And where is she?” I asked.
“Ah! Monsieur,” Mother Souchard replied, “does anybody know where Madame goes? There was a man here this morning who looked like some kind of a valet and spoke to Celestine, and then Celestine went out taking with her a change of clothes for Madame. … That’s all I know!”
While prowling in the study I found the card which I had sent her the day before.
“Did Madame read this?”
“Probably not.”
“And you don’t know where she is?”
“Why, I am sure I don’t know. Madame never tells me her affairs.”
I went back to the bedroom, seated myself on a long couch.
“All right, Madame Souchard. I am going to wait here. And let me tell you that something funny is going to happen! Ha! Ha! In the end, you see, Mother Souchard, this thing is bound to come to a head. I have been patient long enough. I have been. … Well, that’s enough!”
I shook my fist in the air.
“And it is going to be very funny, Mother Souchard! … and you’ll be able to brag about having taken part in something very funny, something you’ll never forget, never! You’ll dream about it at night with terror, so help me God!”
“Oh! Monsieur Mintié! Monsieur Mintié,” the old woman implored. “For the love of God calm yourself. Go away! You’ll commit a crime as sure as I live! And what is it you are going to do, Monsieur Mintié? What are you going to do?”
At this moment, Spy, having come out of his corner, was advancing toward me, shaking his back, dancing on his hind legs like those of a spider. And I looked at Spy persistently. I was thinking that Spy was the only creature that Juliette loved, that to kill Spy would be to inflict the greatest sorrow on Juliette! The dog raised its paws toward me and tried to get on my lap. He seemed to say:
“Even if you do suffer so much, I am not to blame for it. To avenge yourself on me—so small, so feeble, so trustful, would be cowardly. And then you think she really loves me so much! I amuse her as a plaything, I serve as a distraction for her for a moment and that is all. If you kill me now she will get another little dog like me this very evening, one whom she will call Spy as she did me and whom she will overwhelm with caresses as she did me, and nothing will be changed!”
I did not heed Spy any more than I heeded any of the voices that spoke within me whenever evil was drawing me on to commit some reprehensible deed.
Brutally, ferociously I seized the little dog by his hind legs.
“Here is what I am going to do, Mother Souchard!” I shouted. “Look!”
And hurling Spy into the air with all my force so that he turned over several times, I crashed his head against the corner of the fireplace. Blood streamed all over the looking-glass and the hangings, bits of brains stuck to the candlesticks and a torn-out eye fell on the carpet.
“What am I going to do, Mother Souchard?” I repeated, flinging the cadaver into the middle of the bed upon which a pool of blood appeared. “What am I going to do? Ha, Ha! You see this blood, this eye, these brains, this cadaver, this bed! Ha, Ha! Well, that’s what I am going to do to Juliette, Mother Souchard! That’s what I am going to do to Juliette, do you hear me, you old drunkard!”
“Ah! for the life of me!” Mother Souchard stammered out, terrified. “For the life of the good Lord, I. …”
She did not finish. With bulging eyes, her mouth wide open and distorted into a horrible grimace, she was staring at the black body on the bed and at the blood absorbed by the bedclothes, the red stain on which was becoming purple and larger.
XII
When I regained my senses, the killing of Spy appeared to me a monstrous crime. I was as horrified as if I had killed a child. Of all the cowardly acts committed I thought that was
