“Listen, Bernard, I’m not telling you this to persuade you of my innocence, far from it!”
Her self-accusation was full of a strange and passionate sincerity: to have been able to act, as she had done, in a kind of trance, for months past, she must, she thought, have conceived and brooded over thoughts of crime. Besides, when once the deed was done, with what savage lucidity of purpose and persistence she had pursued her aim!
“I only felt cruel when my hand trembled. I hated myself for prolonging your sufferings; I felt I must bring the business to an end, and quickly too! I obeyed a dreadful sense of duty,—yes, it was almost like a duty.”
“Oh, these are phrases,” Bernard broke in. “Just try and tell me, once and for all, what you wanted: come, now!”
“What I wanted? Indeed it would be easier to say what I did not want. I did not want to play a part, move like an automaton, talk in formulæ, be eternally false to a Thérèse who.... No, Bernard, it’s no use: you see how hard I am trying to tell the truth. How is it that everything I tell you rings so false?...”
“Don’t talk so loud: the man in front of us turned round just now.”
All Bernard wanted now was to get away: but he knew the fantastic creature too well: hair-splitting was a favourite occupation of hers. Thérèse, too, realised that her companion, who for one brief second had come near to her, had again receded into the infinite distance. But she persisted, called in the aid of her lovely smile, and spoke with certain low and husky intonations he had always liked.
“But now, Bernard, I feel clearly that the Thérèse who stamps out her cigarette because a spark will set the undergrowth on fire, the Thérèse who liked to count the pines, and look after her resin:—the Thérèse who was proud to marry a Desqueyroux, to hold a place in one of the best families of the district, glad at last to settle down, as the phrase goes;—that Thérèse is as real as the other, and as alive: No, there was no need to sacrifice her to the other.”
“What other?”
She did not know what to answer, and he looked at his watch.