has been slapped, kills; a man who has been
dishonored, kills. I have been robbed, deceived, tortured, morally
slapped, dishonored, all this to a greater degree than those whose anger
you excuse.

"I revenged myself, I killed. It was my legitimate right. I took their
happy life in exchange for the terrible one which they had forced on me.

"You will call me parricide! Were these people my parents, for whom I
was an abominable burden, a terror, an infamous shame; for whom my birth
was a calamity and my life a threat of disgrace? They sought a selfish
pleasure; they got an unexpected child. They suppressed the child. My
turn came to do the same for them.

"And yet, up to quite recently, I was ready to love them.

"As I have said, this man, my father, came to me for the first time two
years ago. I suspected nothing. He ordered two pieces of furniture. I
found out, later on, that, under the seal of secrecy, naturally, he had
sought information from the priest.

"He returned often. He gave me a lot of work and paid me well. Sometimes
he would even talk to me of one thing or another. I felt a growing
affection for him.

"At the beginning of this year he brought with him his wife, my mother.
When she entered she was trembling so that I thought her to be suffering
from some nervous disease. Then she asked for a seat and a glass of
water. She said nothing; she looked around abstractedly at my work and
only answered 'yes' and 'no,' at random, to all the questions which he
asked her. When she had left I thought her a little unbalanced.

"The following month they returned. She was calm, self-controlled. That
day they chattered for a long time, and they left me a rather large
order. I saw her three more times, without suspecting anything. But one
day she began to talk to me of my life, of my childhood, of my parents.
I answered: 'Madame, my parents were wretches who deserted me.' Then she
clutched at her heart and fell, unconscious. I immediately thought: 'She
is my mother!' but I took care not to let her notice anything. I wished
to observe her.

"I, in turn, sought out information about them. I learned that they had
been married since last July, my mother having been a widow for only
three years. There had been rumors that they had loved each other during
the lifetime of the first husband, but there was no proof of it. I was
the proof--the proof which they had at first hidden and then hoped to
destroy.

"I waited. She