When I reached my room I was again attacked by fever and was obliged to take to my bed.  My wound had reopened and I suffered great pain.  Desgenais came to see me and I told him what had happened.  He listened in silence, then paced up and down the room as if undecided as to his next course.  Finally he stopped before my bed and burst out laughing.

“Is she your first love?” he asked.

“No!” I replied, “she is my last.”

Toward midnight, while sleeping restlessly, I seemed to hear in my dreams a profound sigh.  I opened my eyes and saw my mistress standing near my bed with arms crossed, looking like a spectre.  I could not restrain a cry of fright, believing it to be an apparition conjured up by my diseased brain.  I leaped from my bed and fled to the farther end of the room; but she followed me.

“It is I!” said she; putting her arms around me, she drew me to her.

“What do you want of me?” I cried.  “Leave, me!  I fear I shall kill you!”

“Very well, kill me!” she said.  “I have deceived you, I have lied to you, I am an infamous wretch and I am miserable; but I love you, and I can not live without you.”

I looked at her; how beautiful she was!  Her body was quivering; her eyes were languid with love and moist with voluptuousness; her bosom was bare, her lips were burning.  I raised her in my arms.

“Very well,” I said, “but before God who sees us, by the soul of my father, I swear that I will kill you and that I will die with you.”

I took a knife from the table and placed it under the pillow.

“Come, Octave,” she said, smiling and kissing me, “do not be foolish.  Come, my dear, all these horrors have unsettled your mind; you are feverish.  Give me that knife.”

I saw that she wished to take it.

“Listen to me,” I then said; “I do not know what comedy you are playing, but as for me I am in earnest.  I have loved you as only man can love, and to my sorrow I love you still.  You have just told me that you love me, and I hope it is true; but, by all that is sacred, if I am your lover to-night, no one shall take my place tomorrow.  Before God, before God,” I repeated, “I would not take you back as my mistress, for I hate you as much as I love you.  Before God, if you wish to stay here to-night I will kill you in the morning.”

When I had spoken these words I fell into a delirium.  She threw her cloak over her shoulders and fled from the room.

When I told Desgenais about it he said: 

“Why did you do that?  You must be very much disgusted, for she is a beautiful woman.”

“Are you joking?” I asked.  “Do you think such a woman could be my mistress?  Do you think I would ever consent to share her with another?  Do you know that she confesses that another attracts her, and do you expect me, loving her as I do, to share my love?  If that is the way you love, I pity you.”