room
was to visit my mistress. I found her alone, seated in the corner of
her room, with an expression of sorrow on her face and an appearance
of general disorder in her surroundings. I overwhelmed her with violent
reproaches; I was intoxicated with despair. In a paroxysm of grief I
fell on the bed and gave free course to my tears.

"Ah! faithless one! wretch!" I cried between my sobs, "you knew that it
would kill me. Did the prospect please you? What have I done to you?"

She threw her arms around my neck, saying that she had been tempted,
that my rival had intoxicated her at that fatal supper, but that she
had never been his; that she had abandoned herself in a moment of
forgetfulness; that she had committed a fault but not a crime; but
that if I would not pardon her, she, too, would die. All that sincere
repentance has of tears, all that sorrow has of eloquence, she exhausted
in order to console me; pale and distraught, her dress deranged, her
hair falling over her shoulders, she kneeled in the middle of her
chamber; never have I seen anything so beautiful, and I shuddered with
horror as my senses revolted at the sight.

I went away crushed, scarcely able to direct my tottering steps. I
wished never to see her again; but in a quarter of an hour I returned.
I do not know what desperate resolve I had formed; I experienced a
full desire to know her mine once more, to drain the cup of tears and
bitterness to the dregs, and then to die with her. In short I abhorred
her, yet I idolized her; I felt that her love was ruin, but that to live
without her was impossible. I mounted the stairs like a flash; I spoke
to none of the servants, but, familiar with the house, opened the door
of her chamber.

I found her seated calmly before her toilette-table, covered with
jewels; she held in her hand a piece of red crepe which she passed
gently over her cheeks. I thought I was dreaming; it did not seem
possible that this was the woman I had left, just fifteen minutes
before, overwhelmed with grief, abased to the floor; I was as motionless
as a statue. She, hearing the door open, turned her head and smiled:

"Is it you?" she said.

She was going to a ball and was expecting my rival. As she recognized
me, she compressed her lips and frowned.

I started to leave the room. I looked at her bare neck, lithe and
perfumed, on which rested her knotted hair confined by a jewelled comb;
that neck, the seat of vital force, was blacker than