said to myself: 'He is there!' and
when I found he was not there, I went out again! But almost immediately
I went back again, thinking: 'He has come now!' and that went on every
day.

"At night it was still worse, for I felt her by my side in bed asleep,
or pretending to be asleep! Was she really sleeping? No, most likely
not. Was that another lie?

"I remained motionless on my back, hot from the warmth of her body,
panting and tormented. Oh! how intensely I longed to get up, to get a
hammer and to split her head open, so as to be able to see inside it! I
knew that I should have seen nothing except what is to be found in every
head, and I should have discovered nothing, for that would have been
impossible. And her eyes! When she looked at me, I felt furious with
rage. I looked at her ... she looked at me! Her eyes were transparent,
candid ... and false, false! Nobody could tell what she was thinking of,
and I felt inclined to run pins into them, and to destroy those mirrors
of falseness.

"Ah! how well I could understand the Inquisition! I would have applied
the torture, the boot.... Speak!...Confess!...You will not? ...Then
wait!...And I would have seized her by the throat until I choked her....
Or else I would have held her fingers into the fire. ...Oh! how I should
have enjoyed doing it! ...Speak!...Speak!...You will not? I would have
held them on the coals, and when the tips were burnt, she would have
confessed... certainly she would have confessed!"

Tremoulin was sitting up, shouting, with clenched fists. Around us, on
the neighboring roofs, people awoke and sat up, as he was disturbing
their sleep. As for me, I was moved and powerfully interested, and in
the darkness I could see that little woman, that little, fair, lively,
artful woman, as if I had known her personally. I saw her selling her
books, talking with the men whom her childish ways attracted, and in her
delicate, doll-like head, I could see little crafty ideas, silly ideas,
the dreams which a milliner smelling of musk attached to all heroes of
romantic adventures. I suspected her just like he did, I hated and
detested her, and would willingly have burnt her fingers and made her
confess.

Presently, he continued more calmly: "I do not know why I have told you
all this, for I have never mentioned it to anyone, but then, I have not
seen anybody or spoken to anybody for two years! And it was seething in
my heart like a fermenting wine. I have got rid