He returned home, walking rapidly, his blood boiling, his head burning, grief and anger seething within him.
XXXV
Fatou was awaiting his return in great anxiety. As soon as he entered she saw that he had not recovered his treasure—the old watch that struck the hour.
His aspect was so sombre that she thought he was probably going to kill her.
This she could understand. For if any one had taken from her a certain shrivelled amulet, the most precious one that she possessed, given her by her mother when she was a small child in Galam—she, too, would have thrown herself upon the thief and killed him if she could.
She fully realised that she had done something very terrible, driven to it by evil spirits, through her besetting sin, her inordinate love of finery. She knew perfectly well that she had been very wicked. She was sorry to have caused Jean so much pain; she would not mind if he killed her—but she would have liked to kiss him.
She was almost glad, now, when Jean beat her, because it was only on such occasions that he ever touched her and that she could touch him, pressing herself close to him as she pleaded for mercy. This time, when he should seize her in order to kill her, when she had nothing more to risk, she would gather all her strength and cling to him, striving to reach his lips. She would clasp him in her embrace until she was dead—and death was a thing of very little account to her.
If Jean could have interpreted all that was passing in that little gloomy heart, doubtless, to his sorrow, he would have forgiven her yet again, for it was never difficult to mollify him.
But Fatou did not speak, because she was conscious that nothing of all this could be expressed; moreover, the idea of this supreme struggle, wherein she would clasp him and embrace him and die at his hands, thus ending everything—the idea of this had a charm for her. She waited for him, fixing her great, lustrous eyes upon him, with an expression of mingled passion and terror.