im among Germany's adversaries. He was lamenting his former blindness
and was satisfied with his new interests. He was making no secret of
his conduct. He was serving the Allies.

"And that is the reason you are hunting me up; that is the reason that
you have arranged this interview, probably at the instigation of your
friend, the doctor. You wish to employ me for a second time as the
secret instrument of your espionage. 'Captain Ferragut is such an
enamored simpleton,' you have said to one another. 'We have nothing to
do but to make an appeal to his chivalry....' And you wish to live with
me, perhaps to accompany me on my voyages, to follow my existence in
order to reveal my secrets to your compatriots that I may again appear
as a traitor. Ah, you hussy!..."

This supposed treason again aroused his homicidal wrath. He raised his
arm and foot, and was about to strike and crush the kneeling woman. But
her passive humiliation, her complete lack of resistance, stopped him.

"No, Ulysses ... listen to me!"

She tried her utmost to prove her sincerity. She was afraid of her own
people; she could see them now in a new light, and they filled her with
horror. Her manner of looking at things had changed radically. Her
remorse, on thinking of what she had done, was making her a martyr. Her
conscience was beginning to feel the wholesome transformation of
repentant women who were formerly great sinners. How could she wash her
soul of her past crimes?... She had not even the consolation of that
patriotic faith, bloody and ferocious though it was, which inflamed the
doctor and her assistants.

She had been reflecting a great deal. For her there were no longer
Germans, English, nor French; there only existed men; men with mothers,
with wives, with daughters. And her woman's soul was horrified at the
thought of the combats and the killings. She hated war. She had
experienced her first remorse upon learning of the death of Ferragut's
son.

"Take me with you," she urged. "If you do not take me out of my world I
shall not know how to get away from it.... I am poor. In these last
years, the doctor has supported me; I do not know any way of earning my
living and I am accustomed to living well. Poverty inspires me with
greater fear than death. You will be able to maintain me; I will accept
of you whatever you wish to give me; I will be your handmaiden. On a
boat they must need the care and well-ordered supervision of a
woman.... Life