he repeated, turning paler and paler, his eyes glistening.
"Then it was that your whole character came to light; one saw how
spoiled you were, how helpless, how undisciplined. You clung like a worm
to uncertain and undetermined conditions. If I have become a devil in
your eyes, it is your music that has made me so. Now you know it."

"So that is it," whispered the Baroness with faltering breath. "Did you
leave me anything but my music? Have you not raged like a tiger? But it
is not true," she exclaimed, "you are not so vicious, otherwise I myself
would be a lie in the presence of the Eternal Judge, and that I had
borne children by you would be contrary to nature. Leave me, go away, so
that I may believe that it is not true!"

The Baron did not move.

In indescribable excitement, and as quickly as her obese body would
permit, the Baroness leaped to her feet: "I know you better," she said
with trembling lips, "I have been able to foreshadow what is driving you
about; I have seen what makes you so restless. You are not the man you
pretend to be; you are not the cold, heartless creature you seem. In
your breast there is a spot where you are vulnerable, and there you have
been struck. You are bleeding, man! If we all, I and your daughter and
your brothers and your friends and your cowardly creatures, are as
indifferent and despicable to you as so many flies, there is one who has
been able to wound you; this fact is gnawing at your heart. And do you
know why he was in a position to wound you? Because you loved him. Look
me in the eye, and tell me that I lie. You loved him--your son--you
idolised him. The fact that he has repudiated your love, that he found
it of no value to him, the love that blossomed on the ruined lives of
his mother and sister, this is the cause of your sorrow. It is written
across your brow. And that you are suffering, and suffering for this
reason, constitutes my revenge."

The Baron did not say a word; his lower jaw wagged from left to right as
though he were chewing something; his face seemed to have dried up; he
looked as though he had suddenly become older by years. The Baroness,
driven from her reserve, stood before him like an enraged sibyl. He
turned in silence, and left the room.

"My suffering is her revenge," he murmured on leaving the room. Once
alone, he stood for a while perfectly absent-minded. "Am I really
suffering?" he said to himself.

He turned off a gas jet that was burning abov