Maurice Leblanc

“ Whether you like it or not, madame, you are Vorski's wife. And it is because of this undeniable fact that I am asking you, if you please, to consider yourself so today. Let us understand each other; if I do not aim at obtaining your love or even your friendship, I will not accept either that we should return to our former hostile relations. I do not want the scornful and distant wife that you have been. I want... I want a woman... a woman who will submit herself... who will be the devoted, attentive, faithful companion...”
“The slave,” murmured Veronique. ”

“ It alone can save you. Vorski knows neither pity nor fear. But he loves you; and his love will stop at nothing. Take advantage of it, Veronique. Appeal to the past. Become the child that you once were; and perhaps one day I shall drag myself at your feet. Veronique, do not repel me; a man like me is not to be repelled. One who loves as I love you, Veronique, as I love you, is not to be defied. ”

“ He bent towards Veronique:
“Will you be a queen, an empress, and soar above other women even as Vorski will dominate other men? Queen by right of gold and power even as you are already queen by right of beauty? Will you?... Vorski's slave, but mistress of all those over whom Vorski holds sway? Will you?... Understand me clearly; it is not a question of your making a single decision; you have to choose between two. There is, mark you, the alternative to your refusal. ”

“ For that's what it is; you're killing your son, so as not to belong to me. You are depriving him of his life, so as not to sacrifice yours to me. Oh, what hatred! No, no, it is impossible. I don't believe in such hatred. Hatred has its limits. A mother like you! No, no, there's something else... some love-affair, perhaps? No, no, Veronique's not in love... What then? My pity, a weakness on my part? Oh, how little you know me! Vorski show pity! Vorski show weakness! Why, you've seen me at work! Did I flinch in the performance of my terrible mission? Was Sarek not devastated as it was written? ”

“ For, when all is said, though Raynold is more powerful and experienced than Francois and though, logically, Francois ought to be beaten, how it must add to his courage and strength to know that he is fighting before his mother's eyes! He will feel like a knight errant who stakes all his pride on winning. He will be a son whose victory will save his mother... at least, so he will think. Really the advantage is too great; and you can thank me, Veronique, if this duel, as I am sure it will, does not — and I am sure that it will not — make your heart beat a little faster.... ”

“ A week later, having failed in an attempt to cross the frontier, I was imprisoned in an internment-camp.”
He stopped. His face became still harder; and lie growled:
“Oh, the hell that I went through there! Vorski! Vorski, the son of a king, mixed up with all the waiters and pickpockets of the Fatherland! Vorski a prisoner, scoffed at and loathed by all! Vorski unwashed and eaten up with vermin... My God, how I suffered!... But let us pass on. What I did, to escape from death, I was entitled to do. ”

“ You entertained for your husband no feeling save hatred and repulsion. These are things which a man like Vorski does not forgive. So many women and among them some of the proudest had given me proof of my perfect delicacy that I had no cause to reproach myself. That the little middle-class person that you were chose to be offended was not my business. Vorski is one of those who obey their instincts and their passions. ”

“ Look back into my life as I will, amid all my seething emotions and delights, I do not find a single memory to remind me that there was ever between us anything but the pitiless struggle of two enemies. When I look at you, I see a stranger, a stranger in the past as in the present. ”

“ I am only the instrument. The order comes from a higher power than mine, it comes from destiny. For the divine will to be accomplished, Veronique d'Hergemont must die and die on the cross. This is explicitly stated. There is no remedy against fate. There is no remedy unless one is Vorski and, like Vorski, is capable of every audacity, of every form of cunning. ”

“ Does the hangman weep? It is the weak who weep, those who fear lest they be punished, lest their crimes be turned against themselves. But I, I! Our ancestors feared but one thing, that the sky should fall upon their heads. ”

“ They are, however, and they will become even more so.—But, before approaching more formidable matters and in the hope of avoiding them altogether, I should like to make an appeal, not to your spirit of conciliation, for there is no conciliation possible with you, but to your reason, to your sense of reality. ”

“ He affected an exaggerated politeness, the essentially Teutonic politeness of the semi-barbarians who are anxious to prove that they are familiar with all the niceties of civilization and that they have been initiated into every refinement of courtesy, even towards a woman whom the right of conquest would permit them to treat more cavalierly. ”