perhaps; this woman who is a living denial of my aspirations, of my ideals; who will never, never enter into my intellectual life; and lastly this woman who already weighs upon my intelligence like folly, upon my whole being like a crime."
I had a notion to flee, to tell Juliette: "I am going out, I'll be back in an hour," and never to return to this house where the very ceiling was more oppressive to me than the lid of a coffin, where the air stifled me, where the very furniture seemed to say to me: "Leave this place". . . But no! . . . I loved her, and it was this very Juliette that I loved, not the other one who has gone the way of all dreams! . . . I loved her with all her qualities which made me suffer, I loved her in spite of all her lack of understanding, I loved her with all her frivolity, with all her suspected perversions; I loved her with that tormenting love which a mother has for her afflicted child.
Have you ever met a poor creature huddled up behind the door on some wintry day, a wretched human being with chapped lips and chattering teeth, shivering in his tattered rags? . . . And when you met him, were you not carried away by a feeling of keen pity, and did you not have a desire to take him and warm him against your breast, give him something to eat, cover his shivering body with warm clothes? . . . That is how I loved Juliette; I loved her with an immense pity . . . ah, don't laugh, with a mother's pity, with an endless pity! . . .
"Aren't we going out, my dear? It would be so nice to take a stroll through the Bois."
And casting her eyes on the blank sheet of paper on which I had not written a line:
"Is that all you wrote? . . . Well! . . . You do not seem to have worked very hard. . . . And here I have been sitting around all this time to inspire you
