d 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 hell; two shining
tresses had fallen there and some light silvern hairs balanced above it.
Her shoulders and neck, whiter than milk, displayed a heavy growth of
down. There was in that knotted mass of hair something maddeningly
lovely, which seemed to mock me when I thought of the sorrowful abandon
in which I had seen her a moment before. I suddenly stepped up to her and
struck that neck with the back of my hand. My mistress gave vent to a cry
of terror, and fell on her hands, while I hastened from the room.

When I reached my room I was again attacked by fever and was obliged to
take to my bed. My wound had reopened and I suffered great pain.
Desgenais came to see me and I told him what had happened. He listened in
silence, then paced up and down the room as if undecided as to his next
course. Finally he stopped before my bed and burst out laughing.

"Is she your first love?" he asked.

"No!" I replied, "she is my last."

Toward midnight, while sleeping restlessly, I seemed to hear in my dreams
a profound sigh. I opened my eyes and saw my mistress standing near my
bed with arms crossed, looking like a spectre. I could not restrain a cry
of fright, believing it to be an apparition conjured up by my diseased
brain. I leaped from my bed and fled to the farther end of the room; but
she followed me.

"It is I!" said she; putting her arms around me, she drew me to her.

"What do you want of me?" I cried. "Leave, me! I fear I shall kill you!"

"Very well, kill me!" she said. "I have deceived you, I have lied to you,
I am an infamous wretch and I am miserable; but I love you, and I can not
live without you."

I looked at her; how beautiful she was! Her body was quivering; her eyes
were languid with love and moist with voluptuousness; her bosom was bare,
her lips were burning. I raised her in my arms.

"Very well," I said, "but before God who sees us, by the soul of my
father, I swear that I will kill you and that I will die with you."

I took a knife from the table and placed it under the pillow.

"Come, Octave," she said, smiling and kissing me, "do not be foolish.
Come, my dear, all these horrors have unsettled your mind; you are
feverish. Give me that knife."

I saw that she wished to take it.

"Listen to me," I then said; "I do n