th the
lucidity of an hallucination, all sorts of things come to pass,--the
guard arriving, the gendarmes from the post, the commissioner! the
commissioner to whom she could tell everything, her story, her
misfortunes, how the man before her had abused her and what he had cost
her! Her heart collapsed in anticipation at the thought of emptying
itself, with shrieks and tears, of everything with which it was
bursting.

"Come, strike me!" she repeated, still advancing upon Jupillon, who
tried to slink away, and, as he retreated, tossed caressing words to her
as you do to a dog that does not recognize you and seems inclined to
bite. A crowd was beginning to collect about them.

"Come, old harridan, don't bother monsieur!" exclaimed a police officer,
grasping Germinie by the arm and swinging her around roughly. Under that
brutal insult from the hand of the law, Germinie's knees wavered: she
thought she should faint. Then she was afraid, and fled in the middle of
the street.

LVI

Passion is subject to the most insensate reactions, the most
inexplicable revivals. The accursed love that Germinie believed to have
been killed by all the wounds and blows Jupillon had inflicted upon it
came to life once more. She was dismayed to find it in her heart when
she returned home. The mere sight of the man, his proximity for those
few moments, the sound of his voice, the act of breathing the air that
he breathed, were enough to turn her heart back to him and relegate her
to the past.

Notwithstanding all that had happened, she had never been able to tear
Jupillon's image altogether from her heart: its roots were still
imbedded there. He was her first love. She belonged to him against her
own will by all the weaknesses of memory, by all the cowardice of habit.
Between them there were all the bonds of torture that hold a woman fast
forever,--sacrifice, suffering, degradation. He owned her, body and
soul, because he had outraged her conscience, trampled upon her
illusions, made her life a martyrdom. She belonged to him, belonged to
him forever, as to the author of all her sorrows.

And that shock, that scene which should have caused her to think with
horror of ever meeting him again, rekindled in her the frenzied desire
to meet him again. Her passion seized her again in its full force. The
thought of Jupillon filled her mind so completely that it purified her.
She abruptly called a halt in the vagabondage of her passions: she