snapped, was filled with pity, tenderness, and love for the poor innocent wretch I had wanted to kill. I pressed a long kiss on his thin hair, then sat down again by the fireside.
“I thought with stupor, with horror, of what I had done; I wondered whence came these tempests of the soul wherein man loses all awareness of things, all control over himself, and acts under a kind of mad intoxication, not knowing what he does, nor where he goes, like a ship in a hurricane.
“The child coughed once more, and my heart was rent in two. If he were to die! Oh, my God! my God! What would become of me?
“I got up to go and look at him; and, a candle in my hand, I bent over him. Seeing him breathing quietly, I was reassured; he coughed a third time, and I was seized with a terrible shudder, and started so violently back—as a man might when distracted at the sight of some frightful happening—that I let the candle fall.
“When I straightened myself after picking it up I observed that my temples were drenched with the sweat of agony, a sweat hot and icy at once, as though some part of the frightful moral suffering and unspeakable torture, which does actually burn like fire and freeze like ice, were oozing out through the skin and bone of my skull.
“Till daybreak I remained beside the cradle, calming my fears when he remained quiet for a long stretch, and enduring terrible agonies when a feeble cough issued from his mouth.
“He awoke with red eyes and a sore throat, obviously ill.
“When the charwoman came, I sent her out at once for a doctor. He came at the end of an hour, and after examining the child, he said:
“ ‘Has he not been cold?’
“ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I stammered, trembling like a very old man.
“Then I asked:
“ ‘What is it? Is it serious?’
“ ‘I cannot tell yet,’ he answered. ‘I will come back again this evening.’
“He did come back again that evening. My son had lain almost all day in a deep slumber, coughing from time to time.
“During the night inflammation of the lungs set in.
“It lasted ten days. I cannot tell you what I suffered during those interminable hours which separate dawn from dusk and dusk from dawn.
“He died …
“And since then, since that moment, I have not passed an hour, no, not one hour, without that poignant, fearful memory, that memory which gnaws and twists and rends my spirit, stirring within me like a ravenous beast imprisoned in the bottom of my soul.
“Oh, if I had only been able to go mad!”
Monsieur Poirel de la Voulte pushed up his spectacles: it was a gesture customary with him when he had finished reading a deed; and the three looked at one another in silence, pale and motionless.
After a moment the lawyer said: “This must be destroyed.”
The other two nodded their assent. He lit a candle, carefully separated the pages containing the dangerous confession from those containing the monetary dispositions, then placed them in the flame of the candle and threw them into the grate.
They watched the white pages burn up. Soon they were only a small black heap. Several letters could still be distinguished, standing out white against the blackened paper, so the daughter crushed the thin shrivelled layer of ash with nervous movements of her toe, and stamped it down among the cold cinders.
For some time longer the three of them stayed watching as though they were afraid that the burnt secret would escape up the chimney.
The Revenge
Scene I
M. de Garelle, alone, lying back in an armchair.
Here I am at Cannes, a gay bachelor, which is humorous enough. I’m a bachelor. At Paris I hardly realised it. Away from home, it’s another thing. Upon my word, I’m not complaining about it.
And my wife is married again!
I wonder if my successor is happy, happier than I am. What sort of a fool must he be to have married her after me! For the matter of that, I was no less a fool for marrying her first. She had her points, however, certain good points … physical ones … quite remarkably good, but she had serious moral blemishes too.
What a sly wench, what a liar, what a flirt she was, and how attractive to men who were not her husband! Was I a cuckold? God, it’s sheer torture to be wondering that from morning to evening, and never to know for sure.
What plots and counterplots I laid to watch her, without learning anything! In any case, if I was a cuckold, I’m one no longer, thanks to Naquet. How easy divorce is after all! It cost me ten francs for a riding-whip, and a stiffness in my right arm, not counting the pleasure it gave me to lay on to my heart’s content on a woman whom I strongly suspect of deceiving me.
What a thrashing, what a thrashing I gave her! …
He stands up, laughing, takes a few steps, and sits down again.
True, the verdict was given in her favour and against me … but what a thrashing!
Now I am spending the winter in the South, a gay bachelor. What luck! It’s delightful to travel when you can always hope to meet a new love round every corner. Whom shall I meet, in this hotel, now, or on the Croisette, or perhaps in the street? Where is she, the woman who will love me tomorrow and whose lover I shall be? What will her eyes be like, her lips, her hair, her smile? What will she be like, the first woman who will give me her mouth and be folded in my arms? Dark or fair? Tall or short? Gay or grave? Plump or … ? She will be plump!
Oh! how I pity people who don’t know, people who no longer know the exquisite pleasure of anticipation! The woman I really love is the Unknown, the Hoped-for, the Desired, she
