"My friends are honest people, do you hear, with talent, whereas that idiot and that nasty woman!..."
"I think we have had enough of this," Juliette imperiously said. "Is that your wish?... All right. I shall close my door to them. Only when you insisted on my living with you, you should have told me that you wanted to bury me alive. I would have known what to do then...."
She rose. I was not even thinking of telling her that, on the contrary, it was she who had wished that we keep house together. Realizing that it was useless to argue any further I took her hand:
"Juliette," I entreated her.
"Well, what do you want?"
"Are you angry?"
"I, on the contrary, I am very much contented...."
"Juliette!"
"Come, let go of me ... quit ... you hurt me."
Juliette was sulky all day; when I said something to her she did not answer or contented herself with articulating monosyllables curtly and with irritation. I was unhappy and angry at the same time; I would have liked to embrace her and to beat her, to shower kisses and kicks on her. At dinner she still kept the air of an offended woman, with her lips firmly closed and a disdainful look in her eyes. In vain did I try to appease her by humble conduct and sad repentant looks; her assumed sullenness remained unchanged, on her brow there was still that dark furrow which made me uneasy. At night, in bed, she took a book and turned her back to me. And the back of her perfumed neck to which my lips loved to cling with rapturous joy, now seemed to me harder than a stone wall.... Within me deep resentment was stirring, but I forced myself not to betray it. In the measure that I was filled with rage, my voice sought sweeter accents, it grew gentler and more beseeching.