"That was not for you," said she. "That was for the devil." She threw a glass at the young woman and left the room. Several times during the night I heard her say: "That was not for you. It was for the devil."
At eight the next morning the servants put breakfast on the table, leaving me still in the middle. At ten minutes past eight my mistress, whom I shall call Ladybug, came into the room and addressed a little speech to me that I did not understand until matters grew much more serious. You could not understand it at this point, so it will not be given now. Five minutes later the young woman who had been chased out of the room the night before, came in. For the sake of convenience I shall call her Butterfly. I was astonished to see Ladybug embrace Butterfly and kiss her twenty times on the forehead. I thought this a bit of amusing comedy. I afterwards found it stern tragedy.
They sat opposite each other at the table and remained about thirty minutes. They spent the time talking and smiling. They did not eat in the common acceptation of the term.
Ladybug rolled her chicken into nicely rounded balls and tossed them down her throat. Butterfly soaked her chicken and bread in milk and drank the milk.
They finished this unusual task together, and started to leave the room, hand in hand, when Ladybug, glancing at the clock, whispered to Butterfly: "I must go; it is time for me to test his heroism and devotion."
Coming to where I rested, Ladybug picked me up, pressed me closely to her heart, and left the room, carrying me with her. She went straight to a nearby lake, and entered a little boat, in which sat a lone individual. It was the young man who had stood so often opposite the show-window. Ladybug took a seat in the boat, and in silence the young man rowed across the waters.
Two hours on the lake were we, and no words were spoken. Then rising, still in silence, Ladybug hurled me upon the bosom of the lake. Twenty times I was thrown into the water, and nineteen times rescued by the young man. The twentieth time? It was fate and heroism. Ladybug pressed me closely and began to rock from side to side. This she did twenty times, each time more and more violently. Her great black eyes seemed to burn into his all the while.
She then once again tossed me into the water—and leaped after me. This was the action of the play she rehearsed out in her room that night when first I came. The young man followed Ladybug in her mad plunge, and at length succeeded in bringing her to their craft. Ten minutes later she was stretched out upon a boat, alive but unconscious. The young man was flesh for the fish, and I was in possession of a countryman.
When Ladybug regained consciousness and learned that the young man had been drowned, she said: "My lover is free. Hell cannot hold him. Human blood and water have atoned for his crime." This is the little speech she addressed to me that first morning. Then it had been put in the future tense.
Twelve months later a beggar gave Butterfly a hand of tobacco for his supper. While he ate she rolled the best leaf into me, placed me between her teeth, and left the room. Soon Ladybug entered, sounded a bell, as was her nightly custom, and waited.