like it."

We were now seated at table.

"Come, my dear, my former mistress used to sing for me at dessert; you
promised, you know, to imitate her."

She sat down at the piano.

"Ah! pardon me, but will you play that waltz that was so popular last
winter? That will remind me of happy times."

Reader, this lasted six months: for six long months Brigitte,
scandalized, exposed to the insults of the world, had to endure from me
all the wrongs that a wrathful and cruel libertine can inflict on woman.

After these distressing scenes, in which my own spirit exhausted itself
in suffering and in painful contemplation of the past; after recovering
from that frenzy, a strange access of love, an extreme exaltation, led
me to treat my mistress like an idol, or a divinity. A quarter of an
hour after insulting her I was on my knees before her; when I was not
accusing her of some crime, I was begging her pardon; when I was not
mocking, I was weeping. Then, seized by a delirium of joy, I almost lost
my reason in the violence of my transports; I did not know what to do,
what to say, what to think, in order to repair the evil I had done. I
took Brigitte in my arms, and made her repeat a hundred times that she
loved me and that she pardoned me. I threatened to expiate my evil deeds
by blowing out my brains if I ever ill-treated her again. These periods
of exaltation sometimes lasted several hours, during which time I
exhausted myself in foolish expressions of love and esteem. Then morning
came; day appeared; I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and I awakened
with a smile on my lips, mocking at everything, believing in nothing.

During these terrible hours, Brigitte appeared to forget that there
was a man in me other than the one she saw. When I asked her pardon she
shrugged her shoulders as if to answer: "Do you not know that I pardon
you?" She would not complain as long as a spark of love remained in
my heart; she assured me that all was good and sweet coming from me,
insults as well as tears.

And yet as time passed my evil grew worse, my moments of malignity and
irony became more sombre and intractable. A real physical fever attended
my outbursts of passion; I awakened trembling in every limb and covered
with cold sweat. Brigitte, too, although she did not complain of it,
began to fail in health. When I started to abuse her she would leave me
without a word and lock herself in her room. Thank God, I never raised
my hand agains