Page:Calvary mirbeau.djvu/248

242 you only knew in what a hell I am living! If you could only tear my breast open and see what is going on in my heart! Juliette! Oh, I can't, I can't go on living like this any more! Even a beast would have pity on me. Yes, a wretched beast would have pity on me!"

I would press her arms, cling to her dress.

"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