“Before thee, there on that bed, lies a being that nature, perchance, formed for thee.  From the highest circles of intelligence to the deepest and most impenetrable mysteries of matter and of form, that soul and that body are thy affinities; for six months thy mouth has not spoken, thy heart has not beat, without a responsive word and heart-beat from her; and that woman, whom God has sent thee as He sends the rose to the field, is about to glide from thy heart.  While rejoicing in each other’s presence, while the angels of eternal love were singing before you, you were farther apart than two exiles at the two ends of the earth.  Look at her, but be silent.  Thou hast still one night to see her, if thy sobs do not awaken her.”

Little by little, my thoughts mounted and became more sombre, until I recoiled in terror.

“To do evil!  Such was the role imposed upon me by Providence.  I, to do evil!  I, to whom my conscience, even in the midst of my wildest follies, said that I was good!  I, whom a pitiless destiny was dragging swiftly toward the abyss and whom a secret horror unceasingly warned of the awful fate to come!  I, who, if I had shed blood with these hands, could yet repeat that my heart was not guilty; that I was deceived, that it was not I who did it, but my destiny, my evil genius, some unknown being who dwelt within me, but who was not born there!

“I do evil!  For six months I had been engaged in that task, not a day had passed that I had not worked at that impious occupation, and I had at that moment the proof before my eyes.  The man who had loved Brigitte, who had offended her, then insulted her, then abandoned her only to take her back again, trembling with fear, beset with suspicion, finally thrown on that bed of sorrow, where she now lay extended, was I!”

I beat my breast, and, although looking at her, I could not believe it.  I touched her as if to assure myself that it was not a dream.  My face, as I saw it in the glass, regarded me with astonishment.  Who was that creature who appeared before me bearing my features?  Who was that pitiless man who blasphemed with my mouth and tortured with my hands?  Was it he whom my mother called Octave?  Was it he who, at fifteen, leaning over the crystal waters of a fountain, had a heart not less pure than they?  I closed my eyes and thought of my childhood days.  As a ray of light pierces a cloud, a gleam from the past pierced my heart.

“No,” I mused, “I did not do that.  These things are but an absurd dream.”

I recalled the time when I was ignorant of life, when I was taking my first steps in experience.  I remembered an old beggar who used to sit on a stone bench before the farm gate, to whom I was sometimes sent with the remains of our morning meal.  Holding out his feeble, wrinkled hands he would bless me as he smiled upon me.  I felt the morning wind blowing on my brow and a freshness as of the rose descending from heaven into my soul.  Then I opened my eyes and, by the light of the lamp, saw the reality before me.