to her, and don't be afraid of me. I am going out
of her life.' Do you want me to do that?"
Juliette would look at me, greatly astonished. An uneasy smile would play on her lips. She would murmur:
"Come, my dear, you say silly things. Don't cry, come!"
While going out, I would continue to lament: "A beast would have pity on me! Yes, a beast!"
At other times, she would send Celestine for me, and I would find her in bed, cold, sad and tired. I could see that some one had been there just a moment ago, some one who had just left; I could see it in everything that surrounded me in the bed just made, in the toilette articles arranged with overscrupulous care, in all the carefully removed traces which in my imagination reappeared again in all their hidden and sorrowful reality. I would linger in the dressing room, rummage among the drawers, examine objects, even lower myself to a shameful scrutiny of her personal belongings. . . . Juliette would call me:
"Come over here, my dear! What are you doing there?"
Oh! If I could only reconstruct his image, find the least trace of that man! I inhaled the air, inflated my nostrils, hoping to come upon the strong male scent, and it seemed to me that the shadow of a mighty torso spread itself over the hangings, that I distinguished huge, athletic arms, quivering thighs with bulging muscles.
"Are you coming?" Juliette would repeat.
On those nights Juliette would talk of nothing but the soul, the sky, the birds, telling me that she was in need of an ideal, of celestial dreams. Huddled in my arms, chaste as a child, she would say, with a sigh:
"Oh, how nice it is to sit like this! Tell me
