"You are mad!"
"Listen to me ... Philippe...."
"I refuse to listen. This is not the time for quarrelling. I have made up my mind to go. I will go. It is not a rash impulse. It is a decision taken silently and calmly. Let me pass."
He tried to clear the door. She pushed him back, suddenly seized with an energy which became all the fiercer as she felt her husband to be more inflexible. She had only a few minutes; and that was what frightened her. In those few minutes, by means of phrases, poor phrases flung out at random, she had to win the battle and to win it against a foe with whose mettle and obstinacy she was well acquainted.
"Let me pass," he repeated.
"Well, then, no, no, no!" she cried. "You shall not desert! No, you shall not do that infamous thing! There are things that one can't do.... This thing, Philippe, is monstrous!... Listen, Philippe, listen while I tell you...."
She went up to him and, under her breath:
"Listen, Philippe ... listen to this confession.... Philippe, you know what you did on Sunday, your cruelty to your father, to Suzanne, to all of us: well, yes, I understood it.... I suffered the pangs of death, I suffered more than any of the others.... Each word that you spoke burnt into me like fire.... But, all the same, Philippe, I understood.... You had to sacrifice us to the cause of peace. It was your right, it was your duty to victimize us all in order that you might save a whole nation.... But what you now propose to do.... Oh, the shame of it!... Listen, if you did that ... I should think of you as one thinks of ... I don't know what ... as one thinks of the most contemptible, the most revolting ..."
Shrugging his shoulders impatiently, he interrupted her:
"I can't help it if you do not understand. It is my right ... and my duty also...."