“When I meet my old friends in the street, they either treat me coldly, or turn aside.  Even my dear peasant girls, those good girls who love me so much, shrug their shoulders when they see my place empty at the Sunday afternoon balls.  How has that come about?  I do not know, nor do you, I suppose; but I must go away, I can not endure it.  And my aunt’s death, so sudden, so unexpected, above all, this solitude! this empty room!  Courage fails me; my friend, my friend, do not abandon me!”

She wept; in an adjoining room I saw her household goods in disorder, a trunk on the floor, everything indicating preparations for departure.  It was evident that, at the time of her aunt’s death, Brigitte had tried to go away without seeing me, but could not.  She was so overwhelmed with emotion that she could hardly speak; her condition was pitiful, and it was I who had brought her to it.  Not only was she unhappy, but she was insulted in public, and the man who ought to be her support and her consolation in such an hour was the cause of all her troubles.

I felt the wrong I had done her so keenly that I was overcome with shame.  After so many promises, so much useless exaltation, so many plans and hopes, what had I, in fact, accomplished in three months?  I thought I had a treasure in my heart, and out of it came nothing but malice, the shadow of a dream, and the misfortune of a woman I adored.  For the first time I found myself really face to face with myself.  Brigitte reproached me for nothing; she had tried to go away and could not; she was ready to suffer still.  I suddenly asked myself whether I ought not to leave her, whether it was not my duty to flee from her and rid her of the scourge of my presence.

I arose, and, passing into the next room, sat down on Brigitte’s trunk.  There I leaned my head on my hand and sat motionless.  I looked about me at the confused piles of goods.  Alas!  I knew them all; my heart was not so hardened that it could not be moved by the memories which they awakened.  I began to calculate all the harm I had done; I saw my dear Brigitte walking under the lindens with her goat beside her.

“O man!” I mused, “and by what right?—­how dared you come to this house, and lay hands on this woman?  Who has ordained that she should suffer for you?  You array yourself in fine linen, and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble.  You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you perorate as warmly in your deliriums of love as the wretched lawyer who comes with red eyes from a suit he has lost.  You play the infant prodigy in making sport of suffering; you find it amusing to occupy your leisure moments in committing murder by means of little pin pricks.