"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."