At first I kept such thoughts to myself, but soon found pleasure in revealing them to Brigitte. We had gone out for a walk:
“That dress is pretty,” I said, “such and such a girl, belonging to one of my friends, has one like it.”
We were now seated at table.
“Come, my dear, my former mistress used to sing for me at dessert; you promised, you know, to imitate her.”
She sat down at the piano.
“Ah! pardon me, but will you play that waltz that was so popular last winter? That will remind me of happy times.”
Reader, this lasted six months: for six long months Brigitte, scandalized, exposed to the insults of the world, had to endure from me all the wrongs that a wrathful and cruel libertine can inflict on woman.
After these distressing scenes, in which my own spirit exhausted itself in suffering and in painful contemplation of the past; after recovering from that frenzy, a strange access of love, an extreme exaltation, led me to treat my mistress like an idol, or a divinity. A quarter of an hour after insulting her I was on my knees before her; when I was not accusing her of some crime, I was begging her pardon; when I was not mocking, I was weeping. Then, seized by a delirium of joy, I almost lost my reason in the violence of my transports; I did not know what to do, what to say, what to think, in order to repair the evil I had done. I took Brigitte in my arms, and made her repeat a hundred times that she loved me and that she pardoned me. I threatened to expiate my evil deeds by blowing out my brains if I ever ill-treated her again. These periods of exaltation sometimes lasted several hours, during which time I exhausted myself in foolish expressions of love and esteem. Then morning came; day appeared; I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and I awakened with a smile on my lips, mocking at everything, believing in nothing.
During these terrible hours, Brigitte appeared to forget that there was a man in me other than the one she saw. When I asked her pardon she shrugged her shoulders as if to answer: “Do you not know that I pardon you?” She would not complain as long as a spark of love remained in my heart; she assured me that all was good and sweet coming from me, insults as well as tears.
And yet as time passed my evil grew worse, my moments of malignity and irony became more sombre and intractable. A real physical fever attended my outbursts of passion; I awakened trembling in every limb and covered with cold sweat. Brigitte, too, although she did not complain of it, began to fail in health. When I started to abuse her she would leave me without a word and lock herself in her room. Thank God, I never raised my hand against her; in my most violent moments I would rather have died than touched her.