most flattering gravity, that—as all the town knew—I had mistresses by the score.
It is true I deceived Marie.
Yet, I was hers much more than she thought, more than I thought myself.
Not to speak of 'all the town.'
X 'All the town!' How I loathe the vermin of slander, which through the keyholes and the chinks of the doors come crawling into our homes, dragging with them a train of their own dirt. You may guard your private life behind double windows and shutters, all the town will none the less have been standing outside with its own filthy thoughts. And the filth sticks to your windows and to your doors.
Every morning I see on my bedroom window an old fat fly. He is quite grey with age and seems too lazy to move.
But as soon as I come near him, whip! he has gone. I hear him buzz amongst the bed-curtains. I hear him smack heavily against the walls or the ceiling. I open all the windows and go hunting him with a towel. Suddenly he disappears. He hides himself in the rug, behind the mirror, or on the frame of a picture. There he sits perfectly quiet, until I am tired of searching. But every morning I find him again on my window-pane. He never leaves me. With black specks he soils my sheets, and night after night he sings his foul gossiping song over my bed.
