"Listen: you are going away without grasping my hand; I see that you will never forgive me for the wound I have just given you. While I am cowardly and cruel, I have something to propose to you. As I have tortured you, as I have excited your disgust, I must cure you. Send Laurence to me. I feel sufficiently courageous to separate her from you; to-morrow, your tenderness will be dead, you will then tell this woman she can no longer remain under the same roof with you. If you must have another love affair to hasten the work of consolation, go up-stairs, kneel beside Marie's bed and love her. She will not long be a burden to you." He spoke with a cold anger, a lofty and disdainful conviction; he seemed to tread all love under foot, to walk over those women whom he entertained through capriciousness and custom; he looked straight before him, as if he saw his mature age congratulating him upon the logical shames of his youth. So Jacques, the practical man, agreed with Pâquerette; both of them recommended to me an ignoble exchange, a remedy more distressing, more bitter, than the disease. I closed the door violently, and went up-stairs again, almost calm, stupid with grief. There is, in the midst of despair, an instant when the intelligence escapes, when the events which succeed each other mingle together in dire confusion and no longer have any meaning. When I found myself once more before Laurence, who was still asleep, I forgot that I had just seen Jacques, I forgot both his advice and his insults; the heart and the mind of this man seemed to me gloomy abysses into which I could not descend. I was alone, face to face with my love, as yesterday, as ever; I had now but a single thought: to awaken Laurence, to clasp her in my arms, to compel her to accept life and kisses. I awoke her, I took her with fury in my arms, I clasped her with such force as to make her cry out. I had a dumb rage, an implacable will. I was weary of being a stranger to Laurence, of being ignorant of what was passing through her brain; I desired to know the secrets of her soul. I said to myself that then I should no longer be tormented by suspicions, that I would force her to love me by warming her heart with my caresses. Laurence had not spoken to me for two whole days. Pain unlocked her lips. She struggled and cried out to me, in a sullen tone: "Let go of me, Claude, you hurt me! What a strange idea to wake people by choking them!" I knelt upon the floor, at the side of the bed, and stretched out my hands towards my tormentor.