And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms over us and blessed us, the three of us!
This trance did not last long; I soon found myself on the dune, face to face with Juliette.
There were no violins, no wind instruments any longer, only the howl of anguish and revolt, the cry of a captured stag craving the female of its species.
"Juliette! Juliette!"
One evening I returned home more despondent than ever, my mind obsessed with dismal projects, my arms and hands in some manner agitated by a mad desire to kill, to strangle. I would have liked to feel something alive writhing, rattling, dying under the pressure of my fingers. Mother Le Gannec was standing at the threshold, darning the never failing pair of stockings. She said to me:
"How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have prepared some nice sea-crab for you!"
"Leave me alone, you drivelling woman!" I shouted. "I don't want your sea-crab, I don't want anything, do you hear me?"
And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman, stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and moaned.
"Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!"
I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I begged her to come to see me before I died, describing to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping, in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tenderness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.