"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.