YANETTA. Oh, how I wished I could have told you everything! Oh, how many times I began that dreadful confession! I never had courage enough. I was always afraid of your anger, Pierre, and of the pain I should cause you--I saw you were so happy! ETCHEPARE. You came from up there, fresh from your vice, fresh from prison, and you chose me to be your gull. YANETTA. My God, to think he believes that! ETCHEPARE. You brought me the leavings of a swindler--the leavings of a swindler--and you stole, in my house, the place of an honest woman! Your lies have brought the curse of God on my family and it's you who are the cause of everything. The misfortune that's just befallen us, it's you who are the cause of it, I tell you! You're a pest, accursed, damned! Don't say another word to me! Don't speak to me! YANETTA. Have you no pity, Pierre? Do you suppose I'm not suffering? ETCHEPARE. If you are suffering you've deserved it! You haven't suffered enough yet. But what had I ever done to you that you should choose me for your victim? What did I ever do that I should have to bear what I'm suffering? You've made me a coward--you've lowered me almost to your own level--I ought to have been able to put you out of my mind and my heart already! And I can't! And I'm suffering torture, terrible torture--for I'm suffering through the love I once had for you. You--you were everything to me for ten years--my whole life. You've been everything, everything! And now the one hope left me is that I may forget you! YANETTA. Oh, forgive me! ETCHEPARE. Never! Never! YANETTA. Don't say that word--only God has the right to say--never! I will come back to you. I'll be only like the head servant--no, the lowest if you like! I won't take my place in the home again until you tell me to. ETCHEPARE. We have no house; we have no home. Nothing is left now! And I tell you again it's your fault--and it's because you used to be there, in the mother's place, my mother's place, you, a lie and a sacrilege--it's because of that that misfortune has overtaken us! YANETTA. I swear to you I'd make you forget it all in time--I'd be so humble, so devoted, so repentant. And wherever you go I shall follow you. Pierre--think, your children still need me. ETCHEPARE. My children! You shall never see them again! You shall never speak to them. I won't have you kiss them. I won't have you even touch them!