"I live on the Rue de Balzac."
"Nice place!"
I was suffocating. . . . I made a supreme effort to gather all my strength. . . but by a strange aberration I thought I would succeed better by adopting a flippant method of approach. Upon my word of honor! I railed, yes, railed at myself.
"I have come to tell you some news which will amuse you. . . . Ha! . . . . Ha! . . . which will amuse you. . . I am sure. . . I. . . I. . . live with Juliette.
. . . Ha! . . . Ha! . . . with Juliette Roux. . . Juliette, you know. . . . Ha! Ha!"
"Congratulations!" He uttered this word "congratulations" in a perfectly calm, indifferent voice. . . Was it possible! No hiss, no anger, no jumping at me! . . . Just "Congratulations!. . . ." As one might say: "how do you expect that to interest me?" And his back bent over the table remained motionless without straightening up, without stirring! . . . His pen did not slip from his hand; he continued to write! What I told him just now he had known long ago. . . But to hear it out of my own mouth! . . . I was stupefied—and shall I confess it?—I was wounded by the fact that the matter did not seem to affect him at all! . . . Lirat rose and rubbing his hands:
"Well! what's new?" he asked.
I could not stand it any longer. I rushed toward him with tears in my eyes.
"Listen to me," I shouted sobbing. "Lirat, for God's sake, listen to me. . . . I did not act fairly toward you. . . . I know it. . . . and I ask your forgiveness. . . . I should have told you all. . . . But I did not have the courage to. . . . You frighten me. . . And then. . . you remember Juliette, the one you told me about, right here. . . you remember. . . she is the
