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Updated: September 24, 2025
"What would I expect you to do?" I cried, jumping to my feet. "That is just like you. Ah! Desgenais, how all this wearies me! Do you never tire of this sort of life?" "No," he replied. I was standing before an engraving of the Magdalen in the desert. Involuntarily I joined my hands. "What are you doing?" asked Desgenais.
There appeared before my astonished eyes a woman, very pale, carrying a bouquet in her hands, to which was attached a piece of paper bearing these words "To Octave, from his friend Desgenais." I had no sooner read these words than a flash of light came to me. I understood the meaning of this action of Desgenais in making me this African gift. It made me think.
Desgenais saw that my despair was incurable, that I would neither listen to any advice nor leave my room, he took the thing seriously. I saw him enter one evening with an expression of gravity on his face; he spoke of my mistress and continued in his tone of persiflage, saying all manner of evil of women.
With these words I pulled aside the curtain and exposed the interior of the closet. The girl was trying to conceal herself in a corner. "Go in, if you choose," I said to Desgenais; "you who call me a fool for loving a woman, see how your teaching has affected me. Do you think I passed last night under the windows of ? But that is not all," I added, "that is not all I have to say.
Every other thought disappeared. The hours passed by unheeded. What strange "libertines" we were! We did not speak a word and there were tears in our eyes. Desgenais especially, habitually the coldest and dryest of men, was inexplicable on such occasions; he delivered himself of such extraordinary sentiments that he might have been a poet in delirium.
Thus, at the moment I was hoping to cleanse myself from the sin I had committed, perhaps to inflict the penalty, at the very instant when a great horror had taken possession of me, I learned that I had to sustain a dangerous test. Desgenais was in good humor; stretching himself out on my sofa he began to chaff me about my appearance, which indicated, he said, that I had not slept well.
She might employ all the seduction she pleased; you alone were in danger. "It must be that Desgenais has a heart, since he lives. In what respect does he differ from you. He is a man who believes in nothing, fears nothing, who knows no care or ennui, perhaps, and yet it is clear that a scratch on the finger would fill him with terror, for if his body abandons him, what becomes of him?
For a long time good and bad days succeeded each other almost regularly; I showed myself alternately cruel and scornful, tender and devoted, insensible and haughty, repentant and submissive. The face of Desgenais, which had at first appeared to me as though to warn me whither I was drifting, was now constantly before me.
It seemed to me that I felt on my shoulder the brand of a glowing iron and that I was marked with a burning stigma. The more I reflected, the more the darkness thickened about me. From time to time I turned my head and saw a cold smile or a curious glance. Desgenais did not leave me; he knew very well what he was doing, and saw that I might go to any lengths in my present desperate condition.
She breathes with an effort; twice a harsh sound comes from her throat; a mortal pallor overspreads her features and she drops into her chair. Then came an uproar which lasted an hour. It was impossible to distinguish anything, either laughter, songs, or cries. "What do you think of it?" asked Desgenais. "Nothing," I replied. "I have stopped my ears and am looking at it."
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