My host smiled as he said: 

“This is the dwelling, or rather the kennel, of an exile, but my own room is cleaner.  Let us go there.”

As I entered I thought I was in a second-hand store, it was so full of things of all descriptions, strange things of various kinds that one felt must be souvenirs.  On the walls were two pretty paintings by well-known artists, draperies, weapons, swords and pistols, and exactly in the middle, on the principal panel, a square of white satin in a gold frame.

Somewhat surprised, I approached to look at it, and perceived a hairpin fastened in the centre of the glossy satin.  My host placed his hand on my shoulder.

“That,” said he, “is the only thing that I look at here, and the only thing that I have seen for ten years.  M. Prudhomme said:  ’This sword is the most memorable day of my life.’  I can say:  ’This hairpin is all my life.’”

I sought for some commonplace remark, and ended by saying: 

“You have suffered on account of some woman?”

He replied abruptly: 

“Say, rather, that I am suffering like a wretch.”

“But come out on my balcony.  A name rose to my lips just now which I dared not utter; for if you had said ‘Dead’ as you did of Sophie Astier, I should have fired a bullet into my brain, this very day.”

We had gone out on the wide balcony from whence we could see two gulfs, one to the right and the other to the left, enclosed by high gray mountains.  It was just twilight and the reflection of the sunset still lingered in the sky.

He continued: 

“Is Jeanne de Limours still alive?”

His eyes were fastened on mine and were full of a trembling anxiety.  I smiled.

“Parbleu—­she is prettier than ever.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated and then said: 

“Very well?”

“No.”

He took my hand.

“Tell me about her,” he said.

“Why, I have nothing to tell.  She is one of the most charming women, or, rather, girls, and the most admired in Paris.  She leads a delightful existence and lives like a princess, that is all.”

“I love her,” he murmured in a tone in which he might have said “I am going to die.”  Then suddenly he continued: 

“Ah!  For three years we lived in a state of terror and delight.  I almost killed her five or six times.  She tried to pierce my eyes with that hairpin that you saw just now.  Look, do you see that little white spot beneath my left eye?  We loved each other.  How can I explain that infatuation?  You would not understand it.”

“There must be a simple form of love, the result of the mutual impulse of two hearts and two souls.  But there is also assuredly an atrocious form, that tortures one cruelly, the result of the occult blending of two unlike personalities who detest each other at the same time that they adore one another.”