Page:Pierre and Luce.djvu/58

48 "Luce! Do you realize what it is they're doing in there?"

"No, I don't think about it."

"Everything that will make people suffer, die, that tears them to pieces, that burns, that tortures beings like you, like me . . ."

She put her hand on her mouth to signal to him to hush.

"I know, I know all that, but I don't want to think of it."

"You don't want to think about it?"

"No," said she.

And a moment after:

"One must live. . . . If one thinks about it, one cannot live any more. For myself I want to live, I want to live. If they compel me to do that in order to live, shall I torment myself on this account or on that? That's no business of mine; it isn't I that wants it. If it is wrong it is not my fault, not my own. As for me, what I want is nothing bad."

"And what is it you do want?"

"First of all I want to live."

"You love life?"