with me, when invisible hands seemed to be pushing me
towards her, inaudible voices ordered me to commit that murder, it is
surely most probable that I shall have another crisis, and will there be
any awakening from that?

Ah! It will be a thousand times better, since Destiny has left me a
half-open door, to escape from life before it is too late, before the
free, sane, strong man that I am at present, becomes the most pitiable,
the most destructive, the most dangerous of human wrecks!

May all these notes of my misery fall into Elaine's hands some day, may
she read them to the end, pity and absolve me, and for a long time mourn
for me!

_(Here ends Jacques' Journal.)_

AN UNFORTUNATE LIKENESS

During one of those sudden changes of the electric light, which at one
time throws rays of exquisite pale pink, at another a liquid gold, as if
it had been filtered through the light hair of a woman, and at another,
rays of a bluish hue with strange tints, such as the sky assumes at
twilight, in which the women with their bare shoulders looked like
living flowers--it was on the night of the first of January at
Montonirail's, the refined painter of great undulating _poses_ figures,
of brilliant dresses, of Parisian prettiness--that tall Pescarelle, whom
some called _Pussy_, though I do not know why, suddenly said in a low
voice:

"Well, people were not altogether mistaken, in fact, were only half
wrong when they coupled my name with that of pretty Lucy Plonelle. She
had captivated my heart, just as a bird-catcher on a frosty morning
catches an imprudent wren on a limed twig, and she might have done
whatever she liked with me.

"I was under the charm of her enigmatical and mocking smile, where her
teeth had a cruel look between her red lips, and glistened as if they
were ready to bite and to heighten the pleasure of the most delightful,
the most voluptuous kiss, by pain.

"I loved everything in her, her feline suppleness, her slow looks, which
seemed to glide from her half-closed lids, full of promises and
temptation, her somewhat extreme elegance, and her hands, her long,
delicate, white hands, with blue veins, like the bloodless hands of a
female saint in a stained glass window, and her slender fingers, on
which only the large drops of blood of a ruby glittered.

"I would have given her all my remaining youth and vigor to have laid my
burning hands onto the nape of her cool round neck, and to feel that
bright