We were seated at table.
"Come, my dear, my former mistress used to sing for me at dessert; it is understood that you are to imitate her."
She sat 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, that 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 could inflict on woman.
Coming from these frightful scenes, in which my own spirit exhausted itself in suffering and painful contemplation of the past; recovering from that frenzy, a strange access of love, an extreme exaltation, led me to treat my mistress like an idol, like a divinity. A quarter of an hour after having insulted 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 I was 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 another man in me than the one she saw. When I asked her pardon she shrugged her shoulders as though to say: "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 somber 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 began to abuse her she would leave me without a word and lock herself in her room. Thank God, I have never raised my hand against her; in my most violent moments I would rather die than touch her.
One evening the rain was beating against the windows; we were alone, the curtains closed.
"I am in happy humor this evening," I said to Brigitte, "and yet the beastly weather saddens me. Let us seek some diversion in spite of the storm."