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 easts where the wine was bitter as wormwood, where horror froze one's smile, and one's blood turned to ice under the foul kisses of her corpse-cold mouth.

Yes, hideousness is the form and character of Sin.

Make Sin beautiful as Marie was beautiful, and she is no longer Sin.

OW I will set the spectacles of the moralist on my own nose and look at Marie's suitor.

He was an honourable fellow. That was clear, but even had I seen the reverse, I should not have admitted it. For I have made it my duty to speak well of him.

He was an honourable fellow, and I sing his praises, because his intentions toward Marie were most proper and respectable. Yet surely, they could hardly have been anything else. I allow him every good quality except one—he was not a man.

My proof?

He clung to a woman who did not love him.

But perhaps she lied to him? Who has heard the words those two spoke to each other? Not I, of course. But I know that every true lover can distinguish between false and true love-words as easily as the diamond-merchant can distinguish real stones from imitation. Love weighs everything on the most delicate scales, never a letter, never a stroke too much.

Marie's suitor knew that Marie did not love him as surely as he knew that he loved her. Yet he