Octave Mirbeau

“ To kill Juliette! That would have been a crime, of course, but perhaps there could be found, if not an excuse, at least a reason for that crime in the revolt of my anguish. But to kill Spy! A dog ... a poor, inoffensive creature! Why? For no other reason than that I was a brute, that I had in me the savage and irresistible instinct of a murderer! During the war I had killed a man who was kindly, young and strong, and I had killed him just at the moment when, fascinated, with beating heart, he was rapturously watching the rising sun! ”

“ In addition, Juliette's life caused me perpetual anguish. As in the past, on the dune of Ploch, I could not dismiss from my mind the loathsome vision which grew, intensified and assumed even more cruel forms.... To lose a person whom you love, a person who has been the source of all your joys, the memory of whom is associated with happiness only, is a heart-rending sorrow. But where there is sorrow there is also consolation, and suffering is eventually put to sleep, lulled in some way by its own tenderness. ”

“ Lirat went on:
"And to think that there are some people who consider them brutes, these heroes! Ah! you will see those magnificent brutes with their horny hands, their eyes full of infinitude, and their backs which make one weep."
Even on the platform I was still hoping for Juliette's arrival. Surely in a second she will be here, pale, vanquished, suppliant, with outstretched arms: "My Jean, my Jean, I was a bad woman, forgive me! Don't bear me ill-will on account of that, don't forsake me. What do you expect me to become, without you? Oh, come back, my Jean, or else take me along!" ”

“ Sometimes it happens that Juliette is sick. Her members, overstrained by pleasure, refuse to obey her; her constitution, worn out by nervous shocks, revolts. She takes to her bed. If you could only see her then? A child, Lirat, a sweet and touching child! She dreams only of the country, little brooks, green prairies, simple joys: 'Oh, my dear, she exclaims, 'with ten thousand francs of income, how happy we should be!' She makes all sorts of Virgilian and charming plans. 'We ought to go far, far away, to live in a house surrounded by tall trees. ”

“ Only the windows of the brothel houses were aglare, like the eyes of some huge beasts crouching in the depth of night.
Without knowing exactly the state of my financial affairs, I felt that ruin was ahead of me. I had paid out considerable sums of money, debts were accumulating and, far from decreasing, Juliette's whims became even more numerous and more expensive: money flowed like water from her hands, like a fountain, in one continuous stream. "She evidently thinks me richer than I am," I thought to myself, in an effort to deceive myself. ”

“ You are at home in your study, tranquilly absorbed in a book. Outside the sky is grey, the air is cold: it is raining, the wind is blowing, the street is gloomy and dirty, therefore you have every good reason in the world not to stir from your chair.... Yet you go out, driven by weariness, by idleness, by something you yourself don't know—by nothing, ... and then at the end of a hundred steps, you meet the man, the woman, the carriage, the stone, the orange peel, the mud puddle which upsets your whole existence from top to bottom. ”

“ As a rule Juliette never lost her temper. When she was angry her look became severe, the wrinkle on her forehead deepened, her voice lost a little of its sweet sonorousness. She answered simply:
"Gabrielle is my friend."
"That's just what I object to."
There was a moment of silence. Juliette, seated in an armchair, was fingering the lace of her morning gown, thinking. An ironic smile wandered on her lips.
"Do you mean to say that I must not see anyone?... Is that what you want?... Well that's going to be very amusing.... We shall never go out any more ... we shall live like beasts!..." ”

“ With heavy heart, feeling more than ever the crushing weight of loneliness, my mind excited by a thousand projects, one more foolish than the other, I would return to my dune. From this short-lived hope I would pass to keenest sorrow, and the day would pass in invoking Juliette, in calling her, in begging for her from the pale flowers on the sands, from the foam of the waves, from all this insensible nature about me which denied her to me and which ever revealed her indistinct image, marred by the kisses of everybody. ”

“ I would have liked to hide Juliette deep in the loge and throw a thick dark woolen cloak on her shoulders, and with heart clawed by hatred I wished the theatre had sunk into the ground through some sudden cataclysm, that by a sudden collapse of its ceiling and chandeliers it had crushed to a powder all these men, each of whom was stealing a little of Juliette's chastity, a little of her love from me. She, on the other hand, triumphant, seemed to say: "I love you all, gentlemen, for thinking me beautiful. You are nice people." ”

“ My passion for this Virgin became so strong that away from her I was miserable and wished I had never left her at all. "Monsieur Jean will surely become a priest," old Marie used to say. It was like a yearning for possession, like a violent desire to take her, to entwine her, to cover her with kisses.
I took a notion to make a sketch of her: with what love, it would be impossible for you to imagine. When the statue had taken on a semblance of crude form on the paper, it gave me joy without end. ”

“ I said to myself that if I left her, Juliette would sink to even lower depths; that my love for her had in some manner been her last vestige of decency which I should finally succeed in restoring by saving her from the mire in which she wallowed. Truly I had been repaid by the luxury of pity and self sacrifice. But I was lying! I simply can't leave her! I can't because I love her, because the more depraved she is the more I love her. Because I want her, do you hear, Lirat? ”

“ One day she said to me: 'I shall revenge myself on Lirat for his contempt, for his arrogant harshness! And that will be a farce!' She is having that revenge now. You are going into her house, aren't you ... and tomorrow, tonight, this very minute, perhaps, she will chase you out in disgrace! Yes, that is what she is after, I can swear! Ah! Now I understand it all! She has pursued you! Foolish as she is, infinitely inferior to you as she is, she has known how to turn your head. She has a genius for evil, and you are chaste in body and mind! She has poured poison into your veins. ”

“ Juliette would come to see me from time to time, nobody would know that I existed, and in my obscurity I could enjoy my heavenly as well as abominable bliss.... Lirat had spoken to me of honor, of duty, and I believed him!... He had said to me: "Nature will console you." And I believed him! Lirat had lied to me. Nature has no soul. Entirely given over to her eternal labor of destruction, she whispers to me nothing but thoughts of death and crime. Never has she bent over my burning forehead to cool it or stooped over my panting breast to calm it. ”

“ In my rare moments of clear-mindedness, of frankness with myself, I understood that beneath her air of sweetness, beneath her naïveté of a spoiled child, beneath the robust and vibrant passions of her flesh Juliette concealed a powerful desire to be always beautiful, adored, paid court to, concealed a fierce selfishness which would not flinch before any cruelty, before any moral crime!... I realized that she loved me less than the last piece of cloth, that she would have sacrificed me for a cloak or a cravat or a pair of gloves.... Once drawn into such a life she could not stop.... ”

“ Juliette was listening, amused by the stories, attracted by this filth and crime, flattered by this ignoble homage which she felt the glances of these fools and criminals were paying her. But she preserved her modest bearing, her maiden charm, all her graces, self-conscious and inviting at one and the same time, for the sake of which, one day at Lirat's, I earned damnation!
Faces grow more pallid now, features become drawn out. Fatigue swells and colors the eyelids. One after another they leave the cabaret, tired and worried. ”

“ Juliette had chosen a room for me on the second floor of a furnished house in the Faubourg Saint Honoré near the Rue de Balzac. The furniture of the room was rickety, the tapestry worn, the drawers creaked when opened, the pungent odor of decaying wood and accumulated dust filled the window curtains and bedstead hangings; but by placing knick-knacks here and there, she succeeded in imparting an air of intimacy to this banal, cold place, where so many unknown lives had been spent without a trace being left behind. ”

“ And yet I could not conceive anything dissociated from Juliette. All my thoughts had Juliette for their starting point and for their final goal, and the more she escaped me the more fiercely obdurate I grew in my absurd desire to win her back. I had no hope at all that she would ever stop, carried away as she was by this life of evil pleasure; yet, in spite of myself, in spite of her, I was planning for a better future. I said to myself: "It is impossible that some day disgust will not seize her, that some day sorrow will not awaken remorse and pity in her heart. ”

“ Juliette was not long in wearying of this beautiful apartment where she had promised herself so much peace and happiness. Having arranged her wardrobes and put her knick-knacks in order, she did not know what to do next and was surprised at this discovery. The tapestry no longer excited her admiration, reading afforded her no distraction. She passed from one room to another, without knowing what to do, what to busy her mind with, yawning, stretching herself. ”

“ And hurling Spy into the air with all my force so that he turned over several times, I crashed his head against the corner of the fireplace. Blood streamed all over the looking-glass and the hangings, bits of brains stuck to the candlesticks and a torn-out eye fell on the carpet.
"What am I going to do, Mother Souchard?" I repeated, flinging the cadaver into the middle of the bed upon which a pool of blood appeared. "What am I going to do? Ha, Ha! You see this blood, this eye, these brains, this cadaver, this bed! Ha, Ha! Well, that's what I am going to do to Juliette, Mother Souchard! ”

“ I was happy only when alone with Juliette. There, in the red parlor, under the ægis of the terra cotta statuette of Cupid, we sometimes sat for hours, without uttering a word. I would look at her, she would droop her head, pensively playing with the trimming of her dress or the lacework of her waist. Often my eyes for some reason unknown, filled with tears, which rolled down my cheeks like some perfume, flooding my soul with its magic liquid. And my whole being felt a sensation of satiety and delicious torpor. ”

“ And all the agile, handsome young men I met on the street seemed to say to me: "We know your Juliette. Does she give you any of the money she charges us?" Every house, every object, every manifestation of life cried with a frightful chuckle: "Juliette! Juliette!" The sight of roses at the florist's was painful, and I felt rage boil within me each time I looked at the shop windows with their display of inviting things. It seemed to me that Paris was spending all its power, using all its seduction, to rob me of Juliette, and I wished to see it perish in some catastrophe ”