Poor Juliette!... It seems to me that she is down on her knees before me, with clasped hands.... Tears are rolling from her eyes, from her big eyes downcast and sweet.... Tears are streaming from her eyes endlessly as they used to stream from the eyes of my mother in the past.... And at the thought that I wanted to kill her, that I wanted to disfigure her delightful and sorrowful face through horrible mutilation, I am seized with remorse and my wrath gives way to pity.... She goes on.... "Forgive me!... Oh! my Jean you must forgive me.... It is not my fault, I assure you.... Try to recall.... Did you ever warn me, even once?... Did you ever show me even once the way which I should follow? Through weakness, through fear of losing me, through excessive and criminal kindness, you have yielded to all my whims, even the most wicked ones.... How could I know that it was wrong, when you have never told me anything?... Instead of stopping me on the brink of the precipice where I was headed, you yourself have pushed me into it.... What example have you placed before my eyes?... Whither have you led me?... Have you ever tried to take me out of this alarming atmosphere of debauchery?... Why didn't you chase Jesselin or Gabrielle out of our house, all those degenerates whose very presence only helped to increase my wickedness?... To breathe into me a particle of your own soul, to send a ray of light into the darkness of my brains--that is what you should have done!... Yes, you should have given me another life, you should have made me over again!... I am guilty, my Jean!... And I am so ashamed of myself that I can never hope to be able to atone for the infamy of this evil hour even with a whole life of sacrifice and repentance.... But you!... Is your conscience satisfied that you have done your duty?... I dread not the expiation of my sins.... On the contrary I welcome it, I want it.... But you?... Can you sit in judgment over a crime which I admit I have committed, but in which you, too, have had a part since you have not done anything to prevent it!... My dear beloved, listen to me.... This body which I have attempted to defile horrifies you; hereafter you will not be able to look at it without rage and anguish.... All right then, let it perish!... Let it rot in the oblivion of a graveyard!... There shall be left to you my soul, it belongs to you, for it has never forsaken you, for it loves you.... See how white and pure it is...." A knife glistens in Juliette's hands.... She is going to kill herself with it.... I grasp her arms, I shout: "No, no, Juliette, no, I don't want you to!... I love you!... No, no.... I don't want you to!"