l is not devoted to evil
forever, what will you do with the other part that is not yours? You will
touch with your left hand the wounds that you inflict with your right;
you will make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes; you
will strike, and like Brutus you will engrave on your sword the prattle
of Plato! Into the heart of the being who opens her arms to you, you will
plunge that blood-stained but repentant arm; you will follow to the
cemetery the victim of your passion, and you will plant on her grave the
sterile flower of your pity. You will say to those who see you 'What
could you expect? I have learned how to kill, and observe that I already,
weep; learn that God made me better than you see me.' You will speak of
your youth, and you will persuade yourself that heaven ought to pardon
you, that your misfortunes are involuntary, and you will implore
sleepless nights to grant you a little repose.

"But who knows? You are still young. The more you trust in your heart,
the farther astray you will be led by your pride. To-day you stand before
the first ruin you are going to leave on your route. If Brigitte dies
to-morrow you will weep on her tomb; where will you go when you leave
her? You will go away for three months perhaps, and you will travel in
Italy; you will wrap your cloak about you like a splenetic Englishman,
and you will say some beautiful morning, sitting in your inn with your
glasses before you, that it is time to forget in order to live again.

"You who weep too late, take care lest you weep more than one day. Who
knows? When the present which makes you shudder shall have become the
past, an old story, a confused memory, may it not happen some night of
debauchery that you will overturn your chair and recount, with a smile on
your lips, what you witnessed with tears in your eyes? It is thus that
one drinks away shame. You have begun by being good, you will become
weak, and you will become a monster.

"My poor friend," said I, from the bottom of my heart, "I have a word of
advice for you, and it is this: I believe that you must die. While there
is still some virtue left, profit by it in order that you may not become
altogether bad; while a woman you love lies there dying on that bed, and
while you have a horror of yourself, strike the decisive blow; she still
lives; that is enough; do not attend her funeral obsequies for fear that
on the morrow you will not be consoled; turn the poignard again