When that woman deceived me I removed the cruel medallion. I can not tell with what sadness I detached that iron girdle and what a sigh escaped me when it was gone.
"Ah! poor wounds!" I said, "you will soon heal, but what balm is there for that other deeper wound?"
I had reason to hate that woman, she was, so to speak, mingled with the blood of my veins; I cursed her but I dreamed of her. What could I do with a dream? By what effort of the will could I drown memory of flesh and blood? Macbeth having killed Duncan saw that the ocean would not wash his hands clean again; it would not have washed away my wounds. I said to Desgenais: "When I sleep, her head is on my pillow."
My life had been wrapped up in that woman; to doubt her was to doubt all; to deny her, to curse all; to lose her, to renounce all. I no longer went out; the world seemed to be peopled with monsters, with horned deer and crocodiles. To all that was said to distract my mind I replied:
"Yes, that is all very well, but you may rest assured I shall do nothing of the kind."
I sat in my window and said:
"She will come, I am sure of it, she is coming, she is turning the corner at this moment, I can feel her approach. She can no more live without me than I without her. What shall I say? How shall I receive her?"
Then the thought of her perfidy recurred to me.
"Ah! let her come! I will kill her!"
Since my last letter I had heard nothing of her.