hard on the table that it breaks into a thousand pieces. Marie looks at me amazed, but does not speak, and I laugh and laugh again. I dread that she has discovered my madness and force myself to be gay as I have never been before. Marie looks still more amazed, and when she leaves me says—I dare not ask her if she is ironical—'How merry you have been to-day!'
Yes, I am mad! Physically nothing is wrong. I have tested my pulse again and again, its beat is normal. I eat and drink, I call on my friends and they notice nothing. My face betrays no worry, my eyes are bright. But my veins are filled with fire, and scarlet flames dance before my eyes. I am in a perpetual state of terror, and when the fear has strongest hold of my heart, I feel a terrible desire to kill. Do you know, Marie, why I jumped out of bed so suddenly last night and lit all the lights? You had murmured his name, and in the darkness my hand had sought your throat.
If only I had him in my hands, how it would delight me to hear the rattle in his throat, to watch his eyes turning white in death.
LIII I am mad with jealousy. Yet why go on screening myself behind trivial words? I was mad before when in cold blood I saw Marie prepare herself to be his. My eyes, which I imagined to be clear and clever, were blinded with conceit. I was like a god who deals out fates after his own pleasure. Like Zeus, who well knowing Alcimena's beauty, yet
