The patience with which Brigitte opposed these vagaries only served to excite my sinister gayety.  Strange that the man who suffers wishes to make her whom he loves suffer!  To lose control of one’s self, is that not the worst of evils?  Is there anything more cruel for a woman than to hear a man turn to derision all that is sacred and mysterious?  Yet she did not flee from me; she remained at my side, while in my savage humor I insulted love and allowed insane ravings to escape from lips that were still moist with her kisses.

On such days, contrary to my usual inclination, I liked to talk of Paris and speak of my life of debauchery as the most commendable thing in the world.  “You are nothing but a saint,” I would laughingly observe; “you do not understand what I say.  There is nothing like those careless ones who make love without believing in it.”  Was that not the same as saying that I did not believe in it?

“Very well,” Brigitte replied, “teach me how to please you always.  I am perhaps as pretty as those mistresses whom you mourn; if I have not their skill to divert you, I beg that you will instruct me.  Act as if you did not love me, and let me love you without saying anything about it.  If I am devoted to religion, I am also devoted to love.  What can I do to make you believe it?”

Then she would stand before the mirror arraying herself as if for a soiree, affecting a coquetry that she was far from feeling, trying to adopt my tone, laughing and skipping about the room.  “Am I to your taste?” she would ask.  “Which one of your mistresses do I resemble?  Am I beautiful, enough to make you forget that any one can believe in love?  Have I a sufficiently careless air to suit you?” Then, in the midst of that factitious joy, she would turn her back and I could see her shudder until the flowers she had placed in her hair trembled.  I threw myself at her feet.

“Stop!” I cried, “you resemble only too closely that which you try to imitate, that which my mouth has been so vile as to conjure up before you.  Lay aside those flowers and that dress.  Let us wash away such mimicry with a sincere tear; do not remind me that I am but a prodigal son; I remember the past too well.”

But even this repentance was cruel, as it proved to her that the phantoms in my heart were full of reality.  In yielding to an impulse of horror I merely gave her to understand that her resignation and her desire to please me only served to call up an impure image.

And it was true; I reached her side transported with joy, swearing that I would regret my past life; on my knees I protested my respect for her; then a gesture, a word, a trick of turning as she approached me, recalled to my mind the fact that such and such a woman had made that gesture, had used that word, had that same trick of turning.

Poor devoted soul!  What didst thou suffer in seeing me turn pale before thee, in seeing my arms fall as though lifeless at my side!  When the kiss died on my lips, and the full glance of love, that pure ray of God’s light, fled from my eyes like an arrow turned by the wind!  Ah!  Brigitte! what diamonds trickled from thine eyes!  What treasures of charity didst thou exhaust with patient hand!  How pitiful thy love!