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"'I am mad, I cried; 'I can feel the madness raging at times in my brain. My ideas are like shadows; they flit before me, and I cannot grasp them. Death would be preferable to this life, and I have carefully considered the best way of putting an end to the struggle. I am not thinking of the living Foedora in the Faubourg Saint Honore, but of my Foedora here, and I tapped my forehead.
Her sleeve was quivering with agitation, for the beating of her heart was shaking her whole frame. "Come to the Hotel de Saint-Quentin to-morrow for your papers," she said. "I will be there at noon. Be punctual." She rose hastily, and disappeared. Raphael thought of following Pauline, feared to compromise her, and stayed. He looked at Foedora; she seemed to him positively ugly.
"'Pauline, you were a true prophet; Foedora is killing me, I want to die. My life is intolerable. "'Is there only one woman in the world? she asked, smiling. 'Why make yourself so miserable in so short a life? "I looked at Pauline in bewilderment. She left me before I noticed her departure; the sound of her words had reached me, but not their sense.
"We had once come out of the theatre when it was raining heavily, Foedora had called a cab for me before I could escape from her show of concern; she would not admit any of my excuses my liking for wet weather, and my wish to go to the gaming-table. She did not read my poverty in my embarrassed attitude, or in my forced jests. My eyes would redden, but she did not understand a look.
"What unrecognized sacrifices I had made in the past three months for Foedora! How often I had given the price of a week's sustenance to see her for a moment! To leave my work and go without food was the least of it! I must traverse the streets of Paris without getting splashed, run to escape showers, and reach her rooms at last, as neat and spruce as any of the coxcombs about her.
"Foedora presented herself as a drama before a drama. Her lorgnette traveled restlessly over the boxes; she was restless too beneath the apparent calm; fashion tyrannized over her; her box, her bonnet, her carriage, her own personality absorbed her entirely. My merciless knowledge thoroughly tore away all my illusions.
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