Madame Rabineau "is nothing," that Gabrielle is
really sick!
Some kind of a small hotel hedged in between two tall buildings, a narrow door hollowed out in the wall at the end of three steps; a dark fagade, whose closed windows let no light penetrate. . . . It's here! . . . It is here she is going to come, where she already came perhaps! . . . Rage drives me toward this door. . . . I should like to set this house on fire; I should like to make all those detestable ladies hidden there shriek and writhe in agony, in some hellish blaze. . . . Presently a woman enters, singing and swaying her body, her hands in the pockets of her light jacket. . . . Why did not I spit in her face? . . . An old man has come out of his coupe. He passed close to me, snorting, panting, supported under his arm by his valet. . . . His trembling feet are unable to carry him, between his flabby, swollen eyelids there glimmers a light of beastly dissipation. . . . Why did I not slash the hideous face of this profligate old faun? . . . Perhaps he is waiting for Juliette! . . . The door of the Inferno opened before him and for an instant my eyes plunged into the pits of hell. . . . I thought I saw red flames, smoke, abominable embraces, the tumbling down of creatures horribly twisted together. . . . But no, it is only a gloomy deserted hallway, lit by the pale shine of a lamp; then at the end of it there is something black like a dark hole, where one feels impure things are stirring. . . . And carriages are stopping in front of the building, dumping out their haul of human dung into this sink of love. . . . A little girl barely ten years old follows me: "Nice violets! Nice violets!". . . I give her a gold piece. "Go away from here, little one, go away! . . . Don't stay here. They will get you! . . ."
My mind is over-exerted. A thousand-toothed sorrow
