large vehicles were coming down hill, shaking the
night with their loud jolting. . . . A rat darted from
one sidewalk to the other and disappeared into a hole
in the gutter. . . . I saw a homeless dog with hanging
head and tail between its hind legs passing, stopping
at the doors, smelling the gutter, dolefully walking
away.
I shook with fever, my brain was inflamed, my hands were moist and again I felt a stifling sensation in my chest.
"She won't come! Where is she? Did she go back to her house? Where, in what filthy hole of this great impure night is she wallowing?"
What made me particularly angry was that she did not let me know ahead of time. She had received my card. She knew she was not coming. And she did not send me a single word! I had cried, implored, begged her on my knees . . . and not a word from her! How many tears, how much blood must one shed to soften that heart of flint? How could she run after pleasure with her ears still full of the echoes of my sobs, her mouth still moist with my entreating kisses? The most wretched women, the most detestable creatures at some time or other call a temporary halt to their life of dissipation and prey; there are moments when they permit the sun to penetrate their chilled hearts, when turning their eyes to heaven they pray for love that pardons and redeems! But Juliette . . . never! Something more insensible than fate, something more relentless than death was driving her, was eternally drawing and spurring her on without respite, without pause, from impure to criminal love, from that which dishonors to that which kills! The more days passed, the more marks of infamy debauchery left on her. With her passion, formerly so normal and healthy, were now mingled a depraved in-
