Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/221

Rh am nothing but thy servant, thy slave. What hast thou still to reproach me with?"

"Thy contempt, thy grimaces, thy saintly airs! Go, leave me; abandon this plague-stricken man. I want no more of thy insulting compassion. Ah, thou art my remorse, my living reproach. Whatever thou dost thou art a mirror in which I see myself constantly fastened to the pillory, under the red-hot iron of the executioner."

And, seizing her by the wrists at the risk of bruising them, he shouted in her face:

"O normal, irreproachable woman, I hate thee, dost hear, I hate thee!

"Go, I have had enough. Any extremity rather than this hell. Betray me, Madame Judas. Rouse our virtuous neighbours and the whole island. Run to the minister. Tell them what I am. Ah! It's all the same to me.

"This perpetual lying, this constant deception stifles me and weighs upon my spirits. Anything rather than this torture. If thou dost not speak, I'll speak myself; I will tell them all. Ah! I seem infamous to thee; but then, Blandine, thou art more infamous than I, for having lived at the expense of him whom thou despisest, for allowing thyself to