"Ah! It is beyond all comprehension! Sometimes it happens that Juliette is sick. Her members, overstrained by pleasure, refuse to obey her; her constitution, worn out by nervous shocks, revolts. She takes to her bed. If you could only see her then? A child, Lirat, a sweet and touching child! She dreams only of the country, little brooks, green prairies, simple joys: 'Oh, my dear, she exclaims, 'with ten thousand francs of income, how happy we should be!' She makes all sorts of Virgilian and charming plans. 'We ought to go far, far away, to live in a house surrounded by tall trees. She will raise chickens which will lay eggs she herself will take out of the hatching place every morning; she will make cream, cheese; and she will wear aprons like this and straw hats like that, jogging along pathways astride a donkey that she will call Joseph. Geeho! Joseph, Geeho! Ah, how nice it will be!' "When I hear her say that, I feel hope returning and I let myself be taken in by that impossible dream of a rustic life with Juliette disguised as a shepherdess. Quiet landscapes like places of refuge, enchanting like a paradise, unroll before us ... and we grow exalted and enthusiastic. Juliette cries: 'My poor little thing, I have caused you suffering, but now it's all over. I promise you. And then I am going to have a trained ram, am I not? A beautiful ram, very big, all white, around whom I shall tie a bow of red ribbon, and who will follow me everywhere together with Spy, not so, dear?' She insists that I have my dinner in front of her bed, on a little table, and she coddles me like a nurse and caresses me like a mother; she makes me eat as one does a child, repeating without end and with agitation in her voice: 'My poor little thing!' "At other moments she becomes thoughtful and grave: 'My dear, I would like to ask you something that has been worrying me for a long time; promise that you'll tell me.' I promise. 'Well, when one is dead, in the coffin, is it true that one's feet rest against the board?' 'What an idea! Why do you speak of it?' 'Tell me, please tell me!' 'But I don't know, my dear Juliette!' 'Don't you know? Although it is true that you never know anything when I am serious ... because ... you see?... I don't want my feet to rest against the board. When I am dead ... you shall put a cushion inside and my white dress ... you know the one with pink flowers ... the dress for which I won the first prize! You'll be very sorry, my poor little thing, won't you? Embrace me! Come over here, closer to me, still closer. I adore you!'