Octave Mirbeau Archive
Written: 1886.
Source: Text from RevoltLib.com.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Juliette had chosen a room for me on the second floor of a furnished house in the Faubourg Saint Honoré near the Rue de Balzac. The furniture of the room was rickety, the tapestry worn, the drawers creaked when opened, the pungent odor of decaying wood and accumulated dust filled the window curtains and bedstead hangings; but by placing knick-knacks here and there, she succeeded in imparting an air of intimacy to this banal, cold place, where so many unknown lives had been spent without a trace being left behind. Juliette reserved to herself the task of arranging my things in the hanging-press which she filled with bunches of fragrant flowers.
“You see, my dear, here are your socks, and there are your night shirts. I put your neckties in the drawer; your handkerchiefs are there. I hope your little wifie has put everything in order. And every day I’ll bring you a sweet-smelling flower. Now don’t be sad. Tell yourself that I love you, that I love no one but you, that I shall come often. Oh, I have forgotten a few things! Well, I’ll send them to you with Celestine, together with my pictures in the beautiful red plush frames. Don’t feel lonesome, my poor, little thing! You know, if I am not here at half-past twelve tonight don’t wait for me. Go to bed. Sleep well. Promise me?”
And casting a last glance about the room, she left. Indeed, Juliette came every day, while going to the Bois and on her way home before dinner. She never remained more than two minutes at a time. Excited, impelled by a feverish desire to be outside, she would stay long enough to embrace me and to open the drawers to see whether my things were in order.
“Well I am going. Don’t be sad. I see you have been crying. That is not nice at all! Why cause me aggravation?”
“Juliette! Will I see you tonight? Oh! please, tonight!”
“Tonight?”
She reflected for a minute.
“Tonight, yes, my dear! But still do not wait for me too long. Go to bed. Sleep well. Above all, don’t cry. You drive me to despair! Really, I don’t know what to do with you!”
And so I lived here, stretched out on the sofa, never going out, counting the minutes which slowly, slowly, drop by drop, vanished into the eternity of waiting.
The frenzied excitement of my senses was succeeded by a period of great depression. I spent whole afternoons apathetically, without stirring, my body lifeless, my limbs hanging, my brains in a state of torpor, like the morrow of a day of drunkenness. My life resembled a heavy slumber disturbed by painful dreams, interrupted by sudden awakenings even more painful than the dreams; and in the annihilation of my will power, in the blotting out of my intellect, I again felt, but more keenly than ever, the horror of my moral decay. In addition, Juliette’s life caused me perpetual anguish. As in the past, on the dune of Ploch, I could not dismiss from my mind the loathsome vision which grew, intensified and assumed even more cruel forms.... To lose a person whom you love, a person who has been the source of all your joys, the memory of whom is associated with happiness only, is a heart-rending sorrow. But where there is sorrow there is also consolation, and suffering is eventually put to sleep, lulled in some way by its own tenderness. But here I was losing Juliette, losing her daily, every hour, every minute; and with this chain of successive deaths, with this process of impenitent dying, I could only associate memories of torture and disgrace.
No matter how eagerly I searched in the stirred-up depths of our two hearts for a flower bud, for a tiny blossom whose fragrance it would have been so sweet to inhale, I could not find it. And yet I could not conceive anything dissociated from Juliette. All my thoughts had Juliette for their starting point and for their final goal, and the more she escaped me the more fiercely obdurate I grew in my absurd desire to win her back. I had no hope at all that she would ever stop, carried away as she was by this life of evil pleasure; yet, in spite of myself, in spite of her, I was planning for a better future. I said to myself: “It is impossible that some day disgust will not seize her, that some day sorrow will not awaken remorse and pity in her heart. Then she will return to me. Then we will move into a plain workman’s house and I shall work like a galley-slave. I’ll enter journalism, I’ll publish novels, I’ll ask for a job as a plain copyist.” Alas! I forced myself to believe all this so as to accentuate the state of misery into which I had fallen. With the proceeds from the sale of two sketches by Lirat, of a few jewels I still had, of my books, I had realized a sum of four thousand francs, which I was saving like a treasure for that chimeric eventuality.
One day when Juliette was pensive and tenderer than usual, I ventured to lay my project before her. She clasped her hands.
“Yes! Yes! Ah! Won’t that be nice! A little bit of an apartment, a tiny one. I’ll do the housekeeping. I’ll have pretty bonnets, a pretty apron! But with you it’ll be impossible! What a pity! It’s impossible!”
“Why is it impossible?”
“Because you won’t work and we’ll starve. That’s your nature! Did you work at Ploch. Are you working now? Why, you have never worked!”
“How can I? Don’t you know that the thought of you never leaves me for a moment? It is the uncertainty of your life, it is the cruel anguish of everything I feel, of everything I suspect about you that gnaws at my heart, devours me, sucks my brains! When you are not here, I don’t know where you are! And still I am always with you wherever you are! Ah! if you only wished! To know that you are near me, loving and tranquil, far from everything that besmirches, from everything that torments. Why, I could then have the strength of a God in me! Money! Money! Why, I’ll make it for you by the shovelful, by the cartful! Ah! Juliette if you only wished....”
She looked at me, excited by the great noise of gold which my words caused to ring in her ears.
“Well! Make it right away, deary. Yes, make a lot of it, piles of it! And don’t think about those vile things which make you suffer! Men are so funny! They don’t want to understand anything!”
Tenderly, she sat down on my lap.
“Why, I adore you, my dear little thing! Why, I detest the others and I give them nothing of myself, do you hear, nothing. I am very unhappy!”
With tear-filled eyes, she tried to nestle near me, repeating: “Yes very, very unhappy!”
I was seized with fear and pity.
“Ah! He thinks it is a pleasure!” she cried sobbing, “he thinks so! But if I did not have my Jean to console me, my Jean to lull me to sleep, my Jean to give me courage, I could not stand it any longer. I could not stand it any longer.... I would rather die.”
Suddenly, changing the subject, and with a voice in which I seemed to hear a plaint of regret:
“First of all, you need money for that,—for the little apartment, I mean ... and you haven’t got it!”
“Why yes, yes, my dear,” I exclaimed triumphantly, “I have some money. We have enough to live on for two months, three months while I make my fortune!”
“You have money? Let me see it.”
I showed her four one thousand franc bills. Juliette greedily snatched them one after another, counted them, examined them. Her eyes shone, surprised and delighted.
“Four thousand francs, dear! you really have four thousand francs! Why, you are rich! Well, well!”
She hung on my neck, caressed me.
“Well now,” she resumed, “since you are so rich, I should like to have a little traveling dressing case that I saw at the Rue de Paix. You will buy it for me, won’t you, deary?”
I felt a tug at my heart so painful that I nearly fell to the floor, and a well of tears blinded me. Still I had the courage to ask:
“How much does your dressing case cost?”
“Two thousand francs, my dear.”
“All right! Take two thousand francs out of that. You’ll buy it yourself.”
Juliette kissed my forehead, took the two bills which she quickly hid in her coat pocket, and her gaze fixed on the two bills which still remained and for which she no doubt regretted she had not asked, she said:
“Really? Do you want me to? Ah! that’s nice! That will give me a chance to come to see you with my new dressing case, if you should return to Ploch.”
When she was gone, I abandoned myself to an outburst of anger against her, above all against myself, and when the anger subsided I suddenly realized to my astonishment that I no longer suffered. Yes, I breathed more freely, I was able to stretch out my arms with greater vigor, I felt a new buoyancy in my limbs; at last, one might say, some one had removed the crushing weight which for so long a time I had borne on my shoulders. I experienced a keen joy in moving my limbs, in exercising my muscles and joints, in setting my nerves into vibration, when it thus came upon me one morning, in a leap from my bed. Was I not really awakening from a slumber as deep as death? Was I not recovering from a sort of catalepsy, in which my whole being, sunk in torpor, had known the horrible nightmare of nonexistence? I was like one buried who finds the light of day again, like one famished who is given a piece of bread, like one sentenced to death who receives his pardon.... I went to the window and looked out into the street. The slanting rays, of the sun were flooding the houses in front of me with a golden mist; on the sidewalk people were hurriedly passing, preoccupied, with a happy gait; carriages joyously crossed each other’s path. The hustle and bustle and noise of life intoxicated, stirred, carried me away, and I cried out:
“I don’t love you any more! I don’t love you any more!”
In the space of a second I had a very clear vision of a new life of work and happiness. I was to cleanse myself of this filth, to seize my interrupted dreams; not only did I want to redeem my honor, but I wanted also to achieve a glory so great, so undisputed, so universal, that Juliette would burst with spite for having lost a man like me. I already saw myself perpetuated in bronze and marble by posterity, placed upon columns and symbolic pedestals, filling the centuries to come with my immortalized image. And what gave me particular pleasure was the thought that Juliette would not share a particle of this glory, and that I pitilessly pushed her off my lofty plane entirely.
I went down, and for the first time in two years felt a delicious pleasure in being on the street. I walked fast, with supple movements, a victorious gait, interested in the simplest things about me which seemed so new. And I asked myself with amazement how in the world I could have been unhappy so long, why my eyes had not opened to the truth much sooner than they did.... Ah, that despicable Juliette! How she must have laughed at my submission, my blindness, my pitifulness, my inconceivable folly! No doubt, she told her casual lovers of my idiotic grief. But I was going to have my revenge and it would be terrible! Juliette would soon lie prostrate at my feet begging my pardon.
“No, no, you miserable creature, never!... When I cried, did you comfort me?... Did you spare me a single suffering, a single one? Did you ever for a moment consent to share my misery, to live my life with me? You don’t deserve to share my glory. No ... go!”
And to show my absolute contempt for her, I would throw millions in her face.
“Here are your millions! You said you wanted millions? Here are some more!”
Juliette would wring her arms in despair.
“Have mercy, Jean! Have pity on me! I don’t want your money! What I want is to live in obscurity and humbly in your shadow, happy if a single ray of light surrounding you will some day come to rest upon your poor Juliette. Have pity on me!”
“Did you have pity on me when I asked for it! No! Women like you should be killed with blows of gold. Here! Have some more! Here! Some more still!”
I was walking with long strides, talking aloud, moving my hands as if throwing millions into space. “Here, wretch, here!”
Nevertheless, my insusceptibility to everything else when preoccupied with the thought of Juliette was not so complete as to preclude my getting uneasy at the sight of any woman, and scrutinizing with an impatient glance the inside of the carriages which endlessly passed by on the street. On the boulevard my assurance left me, and anguish again seized my whole being. I felt an unbearable burden upon my shoulders, and the devouring beast driven off but a moment ago, rushed on me more ferociously than ever, sinking its fangs into my flesh deeper than ever. It was enough for me to see the theaters, the restaurants, those evil places full of the mystery of Juliette’s life, to make me feel this. The theaters were saying to me: “She was here that night; while you were moaning, calling her, waiting for her—she was promenading in her stage box, with flowers on her bosom, happy, without the slightest thought of you.” The restaurants were saying: “That night your Juliette was here.... With eyes drunk with lust she was rolling on our broken sofas, and men who smelled of wine and cigars possessed her.” And all the agile, handsome young men I met on the street seemed to say to me: “We know your Juliette. Does she give you any of the money she charges us?” Every house, every object, every manifestation of life cried with a frightful chuckle: “Juliette! Juliette!” The sight of roses at the florist’s was painful, and I felt rage boil within me each time I looked at the shop windows with their display of inviting things. It seemed to me that Paris was spending all its power, using all its seduction, to rob me of Juliette, and I wished to see it perish in some catastrophe; I regretted that the rigorous days of the Commune were over, when one could pour petroleum and scatter death upon the streets! I returned home.
“Did anyone call?” I asked the caretaker.
“No, Monsieur Mintié.”
“No letters either?”
“No, Monsieur Mintié.”
“Are you sure nobody went up to my room while I was away?”
“The key was not touched.”
I scribbled the following words on my card: “I want to see you.”
“Take this over to the Rue de Balzac.”
I waited in the street, impatient, nervous; the caretaker was not long in returning.
“The maid told me that Madame had not yet come back.”
It was seven o’clock. I went to my room and stretched out on the sofa.
“She won’t come. Where is she? What is she doing?”
I did not light the candles. The window, illuminated by the street, shone in the room with a dark glimmer, reflected a yellow shine upon the ceiling, where appeared the trembling shadow of the curtains. And the hours passed, slow and endless, so endless and so slow that one might say the flow of time had suddenly stopped.
“She won’t come!”
From the street, the intermittent noise of vehicles reached me; the busses rolled heavily, the closed carriages passed by lightly and rapidly. When one of them passed close to the sidewalk or slowed down I would rush to the window, which I had left half-open, to look into the street.... No one alighted.
“She won’t come!”
And while saying to myself: “She won’t come,” I hoped that Juliette would be in shortly. Oh, how many times I had rolled on the sofa, crying: “She won’t come!” And Juliette always came. Always at the moment when I most despaired, I heard a carriage stop, then steps on the stairway, a creaking noise in the hallway, and Juliette would appear smiling, adorned with plumes, filling the room with a strong odor of perfume and the rustling of silk in motion.
“Come on, get your hat, my dear.”
Irritated by her smile, by her dress, by the perfume, exasperated by the long waiting, I used to upbraid her severely:
“Where have you been? In what joints have you been? Yes, tell me, in what joints?”
“Ah! You are trying to make a scene. Well, thanks! I am leaving. Good night! And here I have taken all the pains in the world to snatch a moment to look you up!”
Then pointing my finger to the door, my muscles contracted, I would burst out:
“Well, go ahead! Go to the devil! And never come back again, never!”
With the door scarcely shut behind Juliette, I would run after her.
“Juliette! Come back, please! Juliette! Wait.... I am going with you.”
She would still be descending the stairs, without turning her head. I would catch up with her.
Near her, near this dress, these plumes, these flowers, these jewels, fury would again seize me:
“Come right up with me or I’ll crack your head against these steps!”
And when in the room I would throw myself at her feet.
“Ah, my little Juliette, I am wrong, I know I am wrong. But I suffer so much! Have pity on me! If you only knew in what a hell I am living! If you could only tear my breast open and see what is going on in my heart! Juliette! Oh, I can’t, I can’t go on living like this any more! Even a beast would have pity on me. Yes, a wretched beast would have pity on me!”
I would press her arms, cling to her dress.
“My Juliette! I have not killed you, though I have a perfect right to, I swear. I have not killed you! You should have given an account of yourself. I must make inhuman efforts to control myself, for you don’t know what terrible and vengeful things a man who suffers and is lonely can conceive. I have not killed you! I have been hoping!—I am still hoping! Come back to me. I’ll forget everything, I’ll erase everything from my memory, my sorrow and my shame.... You will be to me the purest, the most radiant of virgins. We’ll go away, far, far away from here. Wherever you wish. I shall marry you! Don’t you want me to? Do you think I am telling you this in order to have you with me again? Swear to me that you will change your mode of life and I’ll kill myself here in front of you! Listen, I have sacrificed everything for you! I am not talking of my fortune, but of what was formerly the pride of my life, my manly honor, my dream of an artist, all this I have given up for you, without the least regret. You should make some sacrifice for me in turn. And pray, what is it I ask of you? Nothing ... except the gladness of being honest and good. To devote, to consecrate oneself to something, why that’s so grand, so noble! Oh, if you only knew the infinite pleasure of sacrifice? Look now ... Malterre is rich. He is a good fellow, better than the others, he loved you! I’ll go to him, I’ll say to him: ‘You alone can save Juliette, you alone can save Juliette, you alone can bring her back from the life she is living. Go back to her, and don’t be afraid of me. I am going out of her life.’ Do you want me to do that?”
Juliette would look at me, greatly astonished. An uneasy smile would play on her lips. She would murmur:
“Come, my dear, you say silly things. Don’t cry, come!”
While going out, I would continue to lament: “A beast would have pity on me! Yes, a beast!”
At other times, she would send Celestine for me, and I would find her in bed, cold, sad and tired. I could see that some one had been there just a moment ago, some one who had just left; I could see it in everything that surrounded me—in the bed just made, in the toilette articles arranged with overscrupulous care, in all the carefully removed traces which in my imagination reappeared again in all their hidden and sorrowful reality. I would linger in the dressing room, rummage among the drawers, examine objects, even lower myself to a shameful scrutiny of her personal belongings.... Juliette would call me:
“Come over here, my dear! What are you doing there?”
Oh! If I could only reconstruct his image, find the least trace of that man! I inhaled the air, inflated my nostrils, hoping to come upon the strong male scent, and it seemed to me that the shadow of a mighty torso spread itself over the hangings, that I distinguished huge, athletic arms, quivering thighs with bulging muscles.
“Are you coming?” Juliette would repeat.
On those nights Juliette would talk of nothing but the soul, the sky, the birds, telling me that she was in need of an ideal, of celestial dreams. Huddled in my arms, chaste as a child, she would say, with a sigh:
“Oh, how nice it is to sit like this! Tell me something beautiful, my Jean, some such thing as one reads about in poetry. I love your voice so much; it is so musical ... speak to me long. You are so good, you comfort me so well! I would like to live all my life like this, always in your arms, without stirring, listening to you! Do you know what else I would like to have? Ah, I am dreaming of it all the time! I would like to have a nice little baby girl who should be like a cherub, all pink and blond! I would nurse her myself and you would sing her some pretty little songs to put her to sleep! My Jean, when I am dead you will find in my jewelry case a little pink writing book with gold ornaments. That’s for you. Take it. There I have written down my thoughts, and you’ll see whether I loved you or not! You’ll see! Ah! Tomorrow one must get up again, go out ... how annoying! Rock me, speak to me, tell me that you love my soul ... my soul!...”
And she would fall asleep, and in her sleep look so white, so pure, that the bed curtains would seem like wings attached to her.
Night came on, the suburb grew quiet. From afar, belated carriages were returning, and on the sidewalk two policemen paced with heavy, dragging strides, keeping in step.... Several times the door of the furnished house opened and closed; I heard some creaky noise, the rustling of a woman’s dress, whispering voices in the hallway. But it was not Juliette. The silent house seemed to have been asleep a long while. I left the sofa, lit my lamp, looked at the clock; it was three o’clock.
“She won’t come! Now it’s all over. She won’t come!”
I stood at the window. The street was deserted, the dark sky hung over the houses like a leaden lid. Over yonder in the direction of Boulevard Haussman large vehicles were coming down hill, shaking the night with their loud jolting.... A rat darted from one sidewalk to the other and disappeared into a hole in the gutter.... I saw a homeless dog with hanging head and tail between its hind legs passing, stopping at the doors, smelling the gutter, dolefully walking away.
I shook with fever, my brain was inflamed, my hands were moist and again I felt a stifling sensation in my chest.
“She won’t come! Where is she? Did she go back to her house? Where, in what filthy hole of this great impure night is she wallowing?”
What made me particularly angry was that she did not let me know ahead of time. She had received my card. She knew she was not coming. And she did not send me a single word! I had cried, implored, begged her on my knees ... and not a word from her! How many tears, how much blood must one shed to soften that heart of flint? How could she run after pleasure with her ears still full of the echoes of my sobs, her mouth still moist with my entreating kisses? The most wretched women, the most detestable creatures at some time or other call a temporary halt to their life of dissipation and prey; there are moments when they permit the sun to penetrate their chilled hearts, when turning their eyes to heaven they pray for love that pardons and redeems! But Juliette ... never! Something more insensible than fate, something more relentless than death was driving her, was eternally drawing and spurring her on without respite, without pause, from impure to criminal love, from that which dishonors to that which kills! The more days passed, the more marks of infamy debauchery left on her. With her passion, formerly so normal and healthy, were now mingled a depraved inquisitiveness and that savage unsatiableness, that over-stimulation of irrepressible lust which comes as result of excessive and sterile pleasures. Except on the nights when exhaustion invested the sordid reality of her existence with unexpected forms of the purest ideal, one could see upon her the imprints of a thousand different and refined corruptions, of a thousand grotesque perversions practiced upon her by those palled by vice and age. Words and cries often escaped her which suddenly lit up her whole life and opened up vistas of frenzied sensuality, and although she would thereby communicate to me the consuming passion of her depravity, although I myself relished in all this a sort of infernal criminal voluptuousness, I could not look at Juliette without a shudder!... And when leaving her embrace, ashamed and disgusted, I felt the need, often experienced by reprobates, of looking at tranquil, restful sights, and I envied,—oh, with what keen regret!—the superior beings who had made purity and virtue the inflexible laws of their life!... I dreamed of convents where one spent one’s life in prayer, of hospitals where one devoted oneself to others.... I was seized with a mad desire to enter the disreputable joints and preach the gospel to the unfortunate people who wallow in vice there, never hearing a single word of kindness; I promised myself to follow the prostitutes at night, into the shadow of public squares, to console them, to speak to them of virtue with such passionate earnestness, in accents so touching that they would be moved, would burst into tears and would say to me: “Yes, save us....” I liked to spend hours in the Monceau park, watching the children play, discovering a paradise of goodness in the glances of young mothers; I was moved to reconstruct their lives so remote from my own; to live through, while near them, their sacred joys forever lost to me.... On Sundays I used to loiter at the railway stations where I mingled with the merry crowds, among petty officials and workingmen leaving town with their families to get a little fresh air for their affected lungs, to gather a little strength to be able to withstand the fatigue of their work during the week. I followed the steps of some laborer whose face interested me; I would have liked to possess his bent back, his deformed hands turned brown through hard work, his stiff walk, his trusting eyes of a house dog.... Alas!... I would have liked to have everything I did not have, to be everybody that I was not! ... These wanderings which rendered the realization of my downfall even more painful, did me some good, however, and I used to come home each time with all sorts of courageous resolutions.... But in the evening I would see Juliette again, and Juliette was to me the oblivion of all honor and all duty.
Above the houses the sky was brightened by a feeble light announcing the approaching dawn, and at the end of the street, in the shadow, I noticed two glaring points, the two lights of a carriage, vacillating, swerving, approaching, which resembled two errant gas lamps.... Hope revived in me for a moment ... the carriage came nearer, dancing on the pavement, the lights grew larger, the rattling quickened.... I thought I recognized the familiar trundling of Juliette’s brougham!... But no!... Suddenly the carriage turned to the left and disappeared.... Within an hour it would already be day!
“She won’t come!... This time it is all over, she won’t come!”
I closed the window, lay down again on the sofa, blood surging in my temples, all my members aching.... In vain I tried to sleep.... I could not do anything but weep, cry out:
“Oh! Juliette! Juliette!”
My chest was burning, I felt the sensation of boiling lava swirling in my head. My thoughts were in confusion, turning into hallucinations. Along the walls of my bedroom weasels were chasing one another, jumping, abandoning themselves to obscene frolics. I was hoping that I would succumb to fever, that it would chain me to my bed, that it would cause my death. To be sick! Ah! ... yes, to be sick, long, forever! I had visions of Juliette installing herself in my room. She nursed me, she lifted my head to make me take medicine, she saw the doctor to the door, while talking to him in a low voice, and the doctor had a grave air.
“No! No! Madame, not all is lost yet. Calm yourself.”
“Ah! Doctor, save him, save my Jean!”
“Only you can save him, because it is on account of you that he is dying!”
“Ah! What can I do?... Tell me, doctor, please!”
“You must love him, you must be good to him.”
And Juliette threw herself into the arms of the physician:
“No! It’s you I love!... Come!”
She dragged him, clinging to his lips ... and in the bedroom they danced and jumped to the ceiling and fell on my bed, enlaced.
“Die, my Jean, please die! Ah! Why does it take you so long to die?”
I fell into a slumber. When I awoke it was broad daylight. Busses were again rolling on the street, hawkers were screaming out their morning yells; I heard the scratching of a broom sweeping against my door in the hallway where people were passing.
I went out, and proceeded in the direction of the Rue de Balzac. As a matter of fact I had no other intention than to see Juliette’s house, to look into its windows and perhaps come across Celestine or Mother Souchard..... More than twenty times I passed back and forth on the sidewalk, in front of it. The windows of the dining room were open, and I could see the copper plates which were shining in the shadow. A rug was hanging from the balcony. The windows of the bedroom were closed. What was there behind these closed shutters, behind this white impenetrable wall? A disarranged, untidy bed, the heavy odor of carnal passion, and two outstretched bodies asleep. The body of Juliette ... and who else? The body of Mr. Everybody.... A body that Juliette had picked up casually under a cabaret table or on the street! They were asleep, sated with lust! The caretaker came to shake the rug on the sidewalk. I walked away, for ever since I had left the apartment I avoided the mocking glance of this old woman, I blushed every time my eyes met hers, bulging and vicious, seeming to jeer at my misfortune.... When she was finished I returned to the place and stood there for a long time to fret against this wall behind which something horrible was going on and which guarded the cruel mystery of a sphinx crouched upon the sky. Suddenly, as if struck by thunder, a mad fury shook me from head to foot and, without realizing what I was going to do, without even thinking of it, I entered the house, went up the stairway and rang at Juliette’s door. It was Mother Souchard who opened the door for me.
“Tell Madame,” I shouted, “tell Madame that I want to see her immediately, I want to speak to her. Also tell her that if she does not come out I’ll go and find her myself, I’ll drag her out of her bed, do you hear! Tell her....”
Mother Souchard, pale and trembling, stammered out:
“Why, my poor Monsieur Mintié, Madame isn’t in there. Madame has not come back....”
“Take care, you old sorceress! Don’t try to make a fool out of me! And do as I tell you or I’ll kill and smash everybody and everything—Juliette, you, the furniture, the house.”
The old servant raised her arms to the ceiling in bewilderment.
“I swear to you by the Lord! She has not come back yet, Monsieur Mintié! Go into her bedroom and see for yourself! I am telling you!”
In two bounds I was in the bedroom ... the bedroom was empty ... the bed had not been touched. Mother Souchard followed every step I made, repeating:
“See, Monsieur Mintié! See! Because you are no longer together. At this hour!...”
I passed into the dressing room. Everything was in order just as it had been when we used to come home late at night. Juliette’s things were lying on the sofa, a boiler full of water was on the gas stove.
“And where is she?” I asked.
“Ah! Monsieur,” Mother Souchard replied, “does anybody know where Madame goes? There was a man here this morning who looked like some kind of a valet and spoke to Celestine, and then Celestine went out taking with her a change of clothes for Madame.... That’s all I know!”
While prowling in the study I found the card which I had sent her the day before.
“Did Madame read this?”
“Probably not.”
“And you don’t know where she is?”
“Why, I am sure I don’t know. Madame never tells me her affairs.”
I went back to the bedroom, seated myself on a long couch.
“All right, Madame Souchard. I am going to wait here. And let me tell you that something funny is going to happen! Ha! Ha! In the end, you see, Mother Souchard, this thing is bound to come to a head. I have been patient long enough. I have been.... Well, that’s enough!”
I shook my fist in the air.
“And it is going to be very funny, Mother Souchard!... and you’ll be able to brag about having taken part in something very funny, something you’ll never forget, never! You’ll dream about it at night with terror, so help me God!”
“Oh! Monsieur Mintié! Monsieur Mintié,” the old woman implored. “For the love of God calm yourself. Go away! You’ll commit a crime as sure as I live! And what is it you are going to do, Monsieur Mintié? What are you going to do?”
At this moment, Spy, having come out of his corner, was advancing toward me, shaking his back, dancing on his hind legs like those of a spider. And I looked at Spy persistently. I was thinking that Spy was the only creature that Juliette loved, that to kill Spy would be to inflict the greatest sorrow on Juliette! The dog raised its paws toward me and tried to get on my lap. He seemed to say:
“Even if you do suffer so much, I am not to blame for it. To avenge yourself on me—so small, so feeble, so trustful, would be cowardly. And then you think she really loves me so much! I amuse her as a plaything, I serve as a distraction for her for a moment and that is all. If you kill me now she will get another little dog like me this very evening, one whom she will call Spy as she did me and whom she will overwhelm with caresses as she did me, and nothing will be changed!”
I did not heed Spy any more than I heeded any of the voices that spoke within me whenever evil was drawing me on to commit some reprehensible deed.
Brutally, ferociously I seized the little dog by his hind legs.
“Here is what I am going to do, Mother Souchard!” I shouted. “Look!”
And hurling Spy into the air with all my force so that he turned over several times, I crashed his head against the corner of the fireplace. Blood streamed all over the looking-glass and the hangings, bits of brains stuck to the candlesticks and a torn-out eye fell on the carpet.
“What am I going to do, Mother Souchard?” I repeated, flinging the cadaver into the middle of the bed upon which a pool of blood appeared. “What am I going to do? Ha, Ha! You see this blood, this eye, these brains, this cadaver, this bed! Ha, Ha! Well, that’s what I am going to do to Juliette, Mother Souchard! That’s what I am going to do to Juliette, do you hear me, you old drunkard!”
“Ah! for the life of me!” Mother Souchard stammered out, terrified. “For the life of the good Lord, I....”
She did not finish. With bulging eyes, her mouth wide open and distorted into a horrible grimace, she was staring at the black body on the bed and at the blood absorbed by the bed clothes, the red stain on which was becoming purple and larger.