We had ransacked all the closets; there was one near me that remained open. While sitting down at the table, I perceived on a shelf the book of which I have already spoken, the one in which Brigitte was accustomed to write.
"Is it not a collection of your thoughts?" I asked, stretching out my hand and taking the book down. "If I may, allow me to look at it."
I opened the book, although Brigitte made a gesture as if to prevent me; on the first page I read these words:
"This is my last will and testament."
Everything was written in a firm hand; I found first a faithful recital of all that Brigitte had suffered on my account since she had been my mistress. She announced her firm determination to endure everything, so long as I loved her, and to die when I left her. Her daily life was recorded there; what she had lost, what she had hoped, the isolation she experienced even in my presence, the barrier that was growing up between us; the cruelties I subjected her to in return for her love and her resignation. All this was written down without a complaint; on the contrary she undertook to justify me. Then followed personal details, the disposition of her effects. She would end her life by poison, she wrote. She would die by her own hand and expressly forbade that her death should be charged to me. "Pray for him!" were her last words.
I found in the closet on the same shelf a little box that I remembered I had seen before, filled with a fine bluish powder resembling salt.
"What is this?" I asked of Brigitte, raising the box to my lips. She gave vent to a scream of terror and threw herself upon me.
"Brigitte," I said, "bid me farewell. I shall carry this box away with me; you will forget me, and you will live if you wish to save me from becoming a murderer. I shall set out this very night; you will agree with me that God demands it. Give me a last kiss."
I bent over her and kissed her forehead.
"Not yet!" she cried, in anguish. But I repulsed her and left the room.