But yes. Here is a fact, a real fact, a horrible fact, a revealing fact. I do not invent it; I do not exaggerate it; I did not dream it; it is exactly as I state it. It is one of Joseph's duties to kill the chickens, rabbits, and ducks. He kills the ducks by the old Norman method of burying a pin in their head. He could kill them with a blow, without giving them pain. But he loves to prolong their suffering by skilful refinements of torture. He loves to feel their flesh quiver and their heart beat in his hands; he loves to follow, to count, to hold in his hands, their suffering, their convulsions, their death. Once I saw Joseph kill a duck. He held it between his knees. With one hand he grasped it by the neck, with the other he buried a pin in its head; and then he turned and turned the pin in the head, with a slow and regular movement. One would have thought he was grinding coffee. And, as he turned the pin, Joseph said, with savage joy: "It is necessary to make it suffer. The more it suffers, the better its blood will taste." The animal had freed its wings from Joseph's knees; they were beating, beating. Its neck, in spite of Joseph's grasp, twisted into a frightful spiral, and beneath its feathers its flesh heaved. Then Joseph threw the animal upon the stone floor of the kitchen, and, with elbows on his knees and chin in his joined palms, he began to follow, with a look of hideous satisfaction, its bounds, its convulsions, the mad scratching of its yellow claws upon the floor. "Stop then, Joseph," I cried. "Kill it at once; it is horrible to make animals suffer." And Joseph answered: "That amuses me. I like to see that." I recall this memory; I evoke all its sinister details; I hear all the words that were spoken. And I have a desire, a still more violent desire, to cry to Joseph: "It was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods. Yes, yes; I am sure of it now; it was you, you, you, old pig." There is no longer any doubt of it; Joseph must be a tremendous scoundrel. And this opinion that I have of his moral personality, instead of driving me from him, far from placing a wall of horror between us, causes me, not to love him perhaps, but to take an enormous interest in him. It is queer, but I have always had a weakness for scoundrels. There is something unexpected about them that lashes the blood,--a special odor that intoxicates you,--something strong and bitter that attracts you sexually. However infamous scoundrels may be, they are never as infamous as the respectable people. What annoys me about Joseph is that he has the reputation, and, to one who does not know his eyes, the manners, of an honest man. I should like him better if he were a frank and impudent scoundrel. It is true that he would lose that halo of mystery, that prestige of the unknown, which moves and troubles and attracts me--yes, really, attracts me--toward this old monster.