ed by the recollection of you. I feel your lips on mine, your eyes
under my eyes, your flesh under my flesh. I love you! I love you! You
have made me mad! My arms open! I pant with an immense desire to
possess you again. My whole body calls out to you, wants you. I have
kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses."

The magistrate rose up; the nun stopped reading. He snatched the
letter from her, and sought for the signature. There was none, save
under the words, "He who adores you," the name "Henry." Their father's
name was Rene. So then he was not the man.

Then, the son, with rapid fingers, fumbled in the packet of letters
took another of them, and read: "I can do without your caresses no
longer."

And, standing up, with the severity of a judge passing sentence, he
gazed at the impassive face of the dead woman.

The nun, straight as a statue, with teardrops standing at each corner
of her eyes, looked at her brother, waiting to see what he meant to
do. Then he crossed the room, slowly reached the window, and looked
out thoughtfully into the night.

When he turned back, Sister Eulalie, her eyes now quite dry, still
remained standing near the bed, with a downcast look.

He went over to the drawer and flung in the letters which he had
picked up from the floor. Then he drew the curtains round the bed.

And when the dawn made the candles on the table look pale, the son
rose from his armchair, and without even a parting glance at the
mother whom he had separated from them and condemned, he said slowly:

"Now, my sister, let us leave the room."

THE CAKE

Let us say that her name was Madame Anserre so as not to reveal her
real name.

She was one of those Parisian comets which leave, as it were, a trail
of fire behind them. She wrote verses and novels; she had a poetic
heart, and was ravishingly beautiful. She opened her doors to very
few--only to exceptional people, those who are commonly described as
princes of something or other.

To be a visitor at her house constituted a claim, a genuine claim of
intellect: at least this was the estimate set on her invitations.

Her husband played the part of an obscure satellite. To be the husband
of a star is not an easy thing. This husband had, however, an original
idea, that of creating a State within a State, of possessing a merit
of his own, a merit of the second order; it is true; but he did, in
fact, in this fashion, on the days when his wife held receptions