that she came from the womb of a physician's wife
and not from that of the wife of a janitor, and he
would show me her letters, emphasizing the correct
spelling and the elegant turn of phrases! . . . He
seemed to say: 'How I suffer, but how well written
this is!'. . . What a pity!"
"Ah! You, too, love the woman! "I exclaimed, when he finished his tirade.
And foolishly, I added:
"They say you have suffered much."
Lirat shrugged his shoulders and smiled:
"You talk like Delauney, of the Comedie-Française. No, no, my kind friend, I have not suffered; I have seen others suffer, and that was enough for me . . . do you understand?"
Suddenly his voice became shrill, an almost cruel light shone in his eyes. He resumed:
"Ordinary people, poor devils like Charles Malterre, when stepped upon, are crushed, they disappear in the blood, in the mire, in the atrocious filth stirred up by woman's hands . . . that's unfortunate of course. . . . Humanity, however, does not claim them back; for nothing has been stolen from it. . . . But artists, men of our calibre with big hearts and big brains, when these are lost, strangled, killed! . . . You understand? . . ."
His hand trembled, he crushed his crayon on the canvas.
"I have known three of them, three wonderful, divine ones; two died by hanging themselves; the third one, my teacher, is in a padded dark room at Bicetre! . . . Of this pure genius there has been left only a lump of wan flesh, a sort of raving beast who grimaces and hurls himself at you with froth at his mouth! . . . And in this crowd of cast-offs, how many young hopes have perished in the grasp of the beast of prey! Count
