if you drink the wine, and take the courtesan, you will learn how
such things come to pass.

PART II

CHAPTER I. AT THE CROSSWAYS

Upon awaking the following morning I experienced a feeling of such deep
disgust with myself, and felt so degraded in my own eyes that a horrible
temptation assailed me. Then I sat down and looked gloomily about the
room, my eyes resting mechanically on a brace of pistols that decorated
the walls.

When the suffering mind stretches its hands, so to speak, toward
annihilation, when the soul forms some violent resolution, there seems
to be an independent physical horror in the act of touching the cold
steel of some deadly weapon; the fingers stiffen in anguish, the arm
grows cold and hard. Nature recoils as the condemned walks to death. I
can not express what I experienced, unless it was as if my pistol had
said to me: "Think what you are about to do."

Since then I have often wondered what would have happened to me if the
girl had departed immediately. Doubtless the first flush of shame would
have subsided; sadness is not despair, and God has joined them in order
that the one should not leave us alone with the other. Once relieved of
the presence of that woman, my heart would have become calm. There would
remain only repentance, for the angel of pardon has forbidden man to
kill. But I was doubtless cured for life; debauchery was once for all
driven from my door, and I would never again know the feeling of disgust
with which its first visit had inspired me.

But it happened otherwise. The struggle which was going on within, the
poignant reflections which overwhelmed me, the disgust, the fear, the
wrath, even (for I experienced all these emotions at the same time), all
these fatal powers nailed me to my chair; and, while I was thus a prey
to dangerous delirium, the creature, standing before my mirror, thought
of nothing but how best to arrange her dress and fix her hair, smiling
the while. This lasted more than a quarter of an hour, during which
I had almost forgotten her. Finally some slight noise attracted my
attention to her, and turning about with impatience I ordered her to
leave the room in such a tone that she at once opened the door and threw
me a kiss before going out.

At the same moment some one rang the bell of the outer door. I arose
precipitately, and had only time to open the closet door and motion the
creature into it, when Desgenais entered the room with two