“I continually saw Montina’s face before my eyes.  I saw the tall, silly-looking, handsome man, with his bright hair, smiling into her face, and I said to myself:  ‘He is the one!’ I concocted a story of their intrigues.  They had talked a book over together, had discussed the love ventures it contained, had found something in it that resembled them, and they had turned that analogy into reality.  And so I watched them, a prey to the most terrible sufferings that a man can endure.  I bought shoes with india-rubber soles, so that I might be able to walk about the house without making any noise, and I spent half my time in going up and down my little spiral staircase, in the hope of surprising them, but I always found that the clerk was with them.

“I lived in a constant state of suffering.  I could no longer work, nor attend to my business.  As soon as I went out, as soon as I had walked a hundred yards along the street, I said to myself:  ‘He is there!’ and when I found he was not there, I went out again!  But almost immediately I went back again, thinking:  ‘He has come now!’ and that went on every day.

“At night it was still worse, for I felt her by my side in bed asleep, or pretending to be asleep!  Was she really sleeping?  No, most likely not.  Was that another lie?

“I remained motionless on my back, hot from the warmth of her body, panting and tormented.  Oh! how intensely I longed to get up, to get a hammer and to split her head open, so as to be able to see inside it!  I knew that I should have seen nothing except what is to be found in every head, and I should have discovered nothing, for that would have been impossible.  And her eyes!  When she looked at me, I felt furious with rage.  I looked at her ... she looked at me!  Her eyes were transparent, candid ... and false, false!  Nobody could tell what she was thinking of, and I felt inclined to run pins into them, and to destroy those mirrors of falseness.

“Ah! how well I could understand the Inquisition!  I would have applied the torture, the boot....  Speak!...Confess!...You will not? ...Then wait!...And I would have seized her by the throat until I choked her....  Or else I would have held her fingers into the fire. ...Oh! how I should have enjoyed doing it! ...Speak!...Speak!...You will not?  I would have held them on the coals, and when the tips were burnt, she would have confessed... certainly she would have confessed!”

Tremoulin was sitting up, shouting, with clenched fists.  Around us, on the neighboring roofs, people awoke and sat up, as he was disturbing their sleep.  As for me, I was moved and powerfully interested, and in the darkness I could see that little woman, that little, fair, lively, artful woman, as if I had known her personally.  I saw her selling her books, talking with the men whom her childish ways attracted, and in her delicate, doll-like head, I could see little crafty ideas, silly ideas, the dreams which a milliner smelling of musk attached to all heroes of romantic adventures.  I suspected her just like he did, I hated and detested her, and would willingly have burnt her fingers and made her confess.