"Please don't jeer at me. You don't know anything, Lirat. You don't suspect anything. I am lost, dishonored!"
"Dishonored, my friend? Are you sure of it? Do you have unclean debts? You'll pay them off!"
"It is not a question of that! I am dishonored! dishonored, do you understand? It has been four months since I have given Juliette any money ... four months! And here I live, I eat, have my amusements. Every evening ... before dinner ... late at night.... Juliette re-enters the house. She is worn-out, pale, her hair disheveled. From what dens, what alcoves, what arms is she returning? Upon what pillows has her head reclined! Sometimes I see pieces of bed clothes insolently hanging on the top of her hair.... She no longer feels ashamed of it, she does not even take the trouble to lie about it ... one might think it had been arranged between us. She undresses, and I believe she takes a perverse delight in showing me her ill-fastened skirts, her unlaced corset, all the disorder of her rumpled clothes, of her loosened garments which come off, falling to the ground about her, and lie conspicuously on the floor, filling the bedroom with the breath of other people!
"I tremble with rage and want to sink my teeth into her body; my wrath is kindled to a frenzy and boils within me—I feel like killing her. And I say nothing! Often I even come up to her to embrace her ... but she pushes me away: 'No, leave me alone, I am tired!' At first, when this abominable life started, I used to beat her ... for you must know, Lirat, there isn't a disgraceful act that I have not committed. I have exhausted every form of indecency—yes, I beat her! She bent her back ... and hardly uttered a complaint. One evening I seized her by the throat, I threw her to the ground. Oh! I had quite made up my mind to finish her. While I was strangling her, I turned my head away for fear that I might be moved to pity, fixed my gaze upon a flower design on the carpet, and in order to hear nothing, neither her wailing nor rattling, I shrieked out inarticulate words, like a possessed one. How long did it last? Soon she ceased struggling ... her muscles relaxed.... I felt her vitality giving out under my fingers ... a few more convulsions ... and that was the end.... She did not stir any more. And suddenly I saw her black-blue face, her contracted eyes, her mouth, large and wide open, her rigid body, her motionless arms. And like a madman I rushed into every room of the apartment, calling the servants: 'Help, help, I have killed Madame! I have killed Madame!'
"I fled, tumbling down the stairway, without a hat, dashed into the caretakers: 'Go upstairs quickly, I have killed Madame!' Then I darted out on the street, in a frenzy. The whole night I was running without knowing whither, rushing along the boulevards, crossing bridges, dashing against benches in the parks and mechanically turning back toward the house. It seemed to me that through its closed shutters there penetrated the light of wax tapers; priests' vestments, surplices, eucharists passed before me in confusion; it seemed to me that I could hear funeral chants, the rumble of organs, the noise of ropes rubbing against the wood of the coffin. I pictured Juliette stretched out on the bed, dressed in a white robe, her hands clasped, a crucifix on her breast and flowers about her. And I was surprised not to see black draperies on the door, or a hearse with flowers and wreaths at the entrance outside, or people in mourning fighting for a chance to be sprinkled with holy water.
"Oh, Lirat, what a night that was! How did I ever manage not to throw myself under the wheels of the carriages, crash my head against the housewall, or plunge into the Seine. I don't know!... Day came.... I had a notion to surrender to the police. I wanted to go up to a policeman on the street and say to him: 'I have killed Juliette.... Arrest me!' But thoughts, each wilder than the other, came to my mind, clashed and yielded to others. And I ran and ran as if pursued by a pack of barking hounds.... It was Sunday, I remember. There were many people on the streets flooded with sunshine. I was sure that all looked at me, that these people, seeing me run, cried out in horror: 'Here is Juliette's murderer!'
"Toward evening, worn out, on the verge of collapsing on the sidewalk, I met Jesselin! 'I say,' he exclaimed, 'you have done a nice thing, you have!' 'Do you already know it?' 'Why, all Paris knows it, dear friend. A little while ago, at the races, Juliette showed us her neck and the marks which your fingers had left on it. She said: "Jean did this to me." Why, man you are getting on fine!' And while parting, he added: 'For the rest, she has never been more beautiful. And such a success!' And so you see that while I believed her to be dead, she was promenading at the racetrack. I had left the house and she could have thought that I would never come back again, and yet she went to the races ... prettier than ever!"
Lirat gravely listened to me. He was not pacing about any more; he seated himself and shook his head.
"What do you want me to tell you? You must go away."
"Go away?" I rejoined. "I should go away? But I don't want to! An adhesive force like glue which is getting thicker every day holds me fast to her carpets, a chain growing heavier every day holds me riveted to her walls. I can't leave her! Look, at this very moment I am dreaming of committing all sorts of mad, heroic acts. To cleanse myself of all this baseness, I am ready to throw myself in front of the fire-spitting muzzles of a hundred cannons. I feel myself strong enough to crush whole formidable armies single handed. When I walk on the street I look for runaway horses, fires or any other dangerous adventure where I can sacrifice my life. There is not a perilous or superhuman deed that I have not the courage to perform. But, that! I can not do!