But there it is, you see!
When a man holds me in his arms, my skin at once begins to burn, and my head to turn and turn. I become drunk; I become mad; I become savage. I have no other will than that of my desire.
I see only him; I think only of him; and I suffer myself to be led by him, docile and terrible, even to crime!
Oh! that first kiss of M. Georges, his awkward and delicious caresses, the passionate artlessness of all his movements, and the wondering expression of his eyes in presence of the mystery, at last unveiled, of woman and of love!
But, the intoxication passed, when I saw the poor and fragile child, panting, almost swooning in my arms, I felt a frightful remorse,—at least the terrifying sensation that I had just committed a murder.
"Monsieur Georges! Monsieur Georges!
I have made you ill. Oh! poor little one!"
But he,—with what feline, tender, and trusting grace, with what dazzled gratitude, he rolled against me, as if in search of protection.
And he said to me, his eyes filled with ecstasy:
"I am happy. Now I can die."
And, as I cursed my weakness in my despair, he repeated:
"I am happy. Oh! stay with me; do not leave me.
It seems to me, you see, that, if I were left alone, I could not endure the violence of my happiness, although it is so sweet."
While I was helping him to go to bed, he had a fit of coughing.
Fortunately it was short. But, short though it was, it lacerated my soul.
After having relieved and cured him, was I going to kill him now?
I thought that I should be unable to keep the tears back. And I detested myself.
"It is nothing; it is nothing," he exclaimed, with a smile; "you must not grieve, since I am so happy. And besides, I am not sick, I am not sick. You will see how soundly I shall sleep against you. For I wish to sleep upon your breast, as if I were your little child,—my head upon your breast."
"And if your grandmother should ring for me to-night, Monsieur Georges?"
"Oh no! Oh no! Grandmother will not ring.
I wish to sleep against you."
During the fortnight that followed that memorable night, that delicious and tragic night, a sort of fury took possession of us, mingling our kisses, our bodies, our souls, in an embrace, in an endless possession.
We were in haste to enjoy, in compensation for the lost past; we desired to live, almost without rest, the love of which we felt that death, now near at hand, was to be the climax.
A sudden change had taken place in me.
In my kiss there was something sinister and madly criminal.
Knowing that I was killing Georges, I was furiously bent upon killing myself also, of the same joy and of the same disease.
Deliberately I sacrificed his life and mine. With a wild and bitter exaltation I breathed and drank in death, all the death, from his mouth; and I besmeared my lips with his poison. Once, when he was coughing, seized, in my arms, with a more violent attack than usual, I saw, foaming on his lips, a huge and unclean clot of blood-streaked phlegm.
"Give! give! give!"
And I swallowed the phlegm with murderous avidity, as I would have swallowed a life-giving cordial.
Monsieur Georges was not slow in wasting away.
His crises became more frequent, more painful.
He spat blood, and had long periods of swooning, during which he was thought to be dead.
His body grew thin, hollow, and emaciated, until it really resembled an anatomical specimen.
And the joy that had regained possession of the house changed very speedily into dismal sorrow.
The grandmother began again to pass her days in the salon, crying, praying, on the alert for sounds, and, with her ear glued to the door that separated her from her child, undergoing the frightful and continual anguish of hearing a cry,—a rattle,—a sigh, the last,—the end of everything dear and still living that was left to her here below.
When I went out of the room, she followed me, step by step, about the house, wailing:
"Why, my God, why?
And what then has happened?"
She said to me also:
"You are killing yourself, my poor little one.
But you cannot pass all your nights by Georges's side.
I am going to send for a sister to take your place."
But I refused.
And she cherished me all the more for this refusal, seeming to think that, having already worked one miracle, I could now work another. Is it not frightful?
I was her last hope.
As for the doctors, summoned from Paris, they were astonished at the progress of the disease, and that it had worked such ravages in so short a time.
Not for a moment did they or anyone suspect the terrible truth.
Their intervention was confined to the prescribing of quieting potions.
Monsieur Georges alone remained gay, happy,—steadily gay, unalterably happy.
Not only did he never complain, but his soul continually poured itself out in effusions of gratitude.