CHAPTER X
IT is a week since I have been able to sleep. There is a hood of red hot iron upon my head. My blood thickens, one might say that my dilated arteries were bursting, and I have the sensation of tongues of fire licking my loins. Whatever human qualities there still remained in me, what little shame, remorse, self-respect and vague hopes buried under the heap of filth have been left in me by moral suffering, the little that has still held me bound by a thread, be it ever so weak, to thinking creatures all this has now been destroyed by the madness of a frenzied brute. No longer do I entertain thoughts of Good, Truth, Justice, the inflexible laws of nature. I am no longer conscious of the sexual aversion which exists between the various species in the animal kingdom, keeping the world in constant harmony: everything is in a whirl, everything is confused into one tremendous and sterile carnal essence and, in the delirium of my senses, I rave only of unnatural embraces. Not only does the image of prostituted Juliette no longer torment me, but on the contrary it excites my passions! And in my mind I seek, I cling to her, I try to fix her in my memory by ineffaceable marks, I confound her with things, with beasts, with monstrous creatures and I myself lead her to criminal debauchery, spurred on by burning pains. Juliette is no longer the only image that tempts and haunts me. Gabrielle, the Rabineau woman, Mother Le Gannec, Demoiselle Landudec, pass before my eyes in wanton postures. Neither virtue, nor goodness, nor unhappiness, nor sacred old age holds me back, and for the scene of these fright-
