Marguerite was a woman in the same position as Olympe, and yet I should

never have dared say to her the first time I met her what I had said to

the other woman. I loved Marguerite. I saw in her instincts which were

lacking in the other, and at the very moment in which I made my bargain,

I felt a disgust toward the woman with whom I was making it.

She accepted, of course, in the end, and at midday I left her house as

her lover; but I quitted her without a recollection of the caresses

and of the words of love which she had felt bound to shower upon me in

return for the six thousand francs which I left with her. And yet there

were men who had ruined themselves for that woman.

From that day I inflicted on Marguerite a continual persecution. Olympe

and she gave up seeing one another, as you might imagine. I gave my

new mistress a carriage and jewels. I gambled, I committed every

extravagance which could be expected of a man in love with such a woman

as Olympe. The report of my new infatuation was immediately spread

abroad.

Prudence herself was taken in, and finally thought that I had completely

forgotten Marguerite. Marguerite herself, whether she guessed my motive

or was deceived like everybody else, preserved a perfect dignity in

response to the insults which I heaped upon her daily. Only, she seemed

to suffer, for whenever I met her she was more and more pale, more

and more sad. My love for her, carried to the point at which it was

transformed into hatred, rejoiced at the sight of her daily sorrow.

Often, when my cruelty toward her became infamous, Marguerite lifted

upon me such appealing eyes that I blushed for the part I was playing,

and was ready to implore her forgiveness.

But my repentance was only of a moment's duration, and Olympe, who had

finally put aside all self-respect, and discovered that by annoying

Marguerite she could get from me whatever she wanted, constantly stirred

up my resentment against her, and insulted her whenever she found an

opportunity, with the cowardly persistence of a woman licensed by the

authority of a man.

At last Marguerite gave up going to balls or theatres, for fear of

meeting Olympe and me. Then direct impertinences gave way to anonymous

letters, and there was not a shameful thing which I did not encourage

my mistress to relate and which I did not myself relate in reference to

Marguerite.

To reach such a point I must have been literally mad. I was like a man

drunk upon bad wine, who falls into one of those nervous exaltations in

which the hand is capable of committing a crime without the head knowing

anything about it. In the midst of it all I endured a martyrdom. The

not disdainful calm, the not contemptuous dignity with which Marguerite

responded to all my attacks, and which raised her above me in my own

eyes, enraged me still more against her.




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