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Rh "How late you are today, friend Mintié! I have prepared some nice sea-crab for you!"

"Leave me alone, you drivelling woman!" I shouted. "I don't want your sea-crab, I don't want anything, do you hear me?"

And sputtering angry words, I brutally made her step aside to let me pass. The poor kindly woman, stupefied by my action, lifted her arms to heaven and moaned.

"Ah! My Lord! Ah, Jesus!"

I went to my room and locked myself in. At first I rolled on the bed, smashed two chairs, beat my head against the wall. Then, I suddenly sat down to write a letter to Juliette, exalted, raging, full of terrible threats and humble entreaties; a letter in which I spoke of killing her, of forgiving her, in which I begged her to come to see me before I died, describing to her in tragic detail the cliff from which I was going to throw myself into the sea. I compared her to the lowest women in the brothel and two lines further I compared her to the Holy Virgin. More than twenty times I started this letter over again, excited, weeping, in turn delirious with rage and swooning with tenderness. Presently I heard a noise behind the door like the scratching of a mouse. I opened it. Mother Le Gannec was standing there, trembling and pale; she looked at me with her kind, bewildered eyes.

"What are you doing here?" I shouted. "Why do you spy on me? Go away!"

"Friend Mintié," muttered the sainted woman, "don't be angry. I can see that you are unhappy and I came to know if I can help you!"

"Well, suppose I am unhappy! Does that concern you? Here, take this letter to the post office and leave me in peace."

For four days I did not leave my room. Mother