“It’s early still, my silly, charming, little girl....”
With a toss of her head, she shook from her face a few golden tresses that had strayed there—they shone with all the splendor of the sun—and sinking back deliciously upon the pillows, on which her light, her exceedingly light form left scarcely any imprint, she observed:
“I’m glad of that ... I can stay in bed a moment longer.... If I overslept, I might be late for dinner.... How tired I am! If you only knew how tired, tired, tired I am!”
She did not move again, but lay there passively, happily, submissive to the kisses which I rained upon her, though barely pressing my lips to her tortured wasted flesh.
No, I would tell her nothing! I would be very careful not to tell her anything! She did not suspect in the least. And what an immense good fortune that she did not know! Why enlighten her, indeed? No! My despair, my terror, my mortal danger, that must all remain for me alone! And she would never, never know! Since I was alone condemned, I alone would bear the horrors of my destiny. She, free, unknowing, redeemed, would be on her way back ... toward life! I alone would stay behind, silently turning my footsteps toward ... nonentity!... But for my silence I would be repaid with one supreme reward; the almost unbearable intoxication of this last love tryst, which would come to me pure, spotless, undisturbed, without a shadow of any kind upon it....
She was becoming more and more wakeful, and now was chatting with a ripple of words, words of no import, that entered like little gleams of freedom into the darkness of our prison.
She said:
“Imagine, dearest! At my dressmaker’s last Tuesday....”
And later on:
“You know very well whom I mean! Marie Thérèse, the ugly thing! I saw her! She was making up to you under my very nose, at the Squadron Ball....”