Octave Mirbeau

“ It is the uncertainty of your life, it is the cruel anguish of everything I feel, of everything I suspect about you that gnaws at my heart, devours me, sucks my brains! When you are not here, I don't know where you are! And still I am always with you wherever you are! Ah! if you only wished! To know that you are near me, loving and tranquil, far from everything that besmirches, from everything that torments. Why, I could then have the strength of a God in me! Money! Money! Why, I'll make it for you by the shovelful, by the cartful! Ah! Juliette if you only wished. ”

“ Lirat was silent. . . .
"Come, Lirat! You are not going to do that. . . or I shall say that you have sent me away to Ploch in order to steal Juliette from me! You here, with her! Why that's preposterous! Lirat! Remember what you told me about her. . . think of the beautiful things which you had planted in my soul. This despicable woman! Why she is good only for one like me who am lost. But you! You are an honorable man, you are a great artist! Is it to revenge yourself on me that you are doing this? A man like you does not revenge himself in such a manner! He does not besmirch himself! ”

“ You can see for yourself, Lirat, that I am lost, lost, lost! . . and that I must kill myself."
Then Lirat approached and put both hands on my shoulders:
"You say you are lost! Let us see now; when one is of your stock, can one say that a man's life is lost? You say you must kill yourself? Does a man who has typhoid fever say: 'I must kill myself?' He says: 'I must cure myself!' You have typhoid fever, my poor child. . . cure yourself. Lost! Why, there is not a crime, do you hear me, there is not a crime, no matter how monstrous and vile, that can not be redeemed by forgiveness. ”

“ The horizon receded into mysterious infinity: space shone bright like the interior of the sun, and I felt myself growing so tall and strong that in one embrace I was pressing to my breast all the beings, all the flowers, all the swarms of creatures born of the glance of love exchanged between the Holy Virgin of plaster and a little child.
"Holy Virgin, kindly Virgin!" I cried. "Speak to me, speak to me again, as you used to in the past, in the chapel. . . . And give me love once more, for love is life and I am dying because I am no longer able to love." ”

“ And in the midst of rumpled skirts on the carpets, in her dressing room, in front of her looking glass, I clearly see her, bare-shouldered, applying rice powder to her face. Celestine with her soft flaccid fingers is sewing on a band of crepe at the bottom of the low cut waist, and a man whom I don't know, reclining on the sofa, with crossed legs, watches Juliette with eyes in which desire is gleaming. The gas is burning, candle lights are blazing, a bouquet of roses which someone has just brought, mingles its more delicate perfume with the violent odors of dresses! ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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! That's what I am going to do to Juliette, do you hear me, you old drunkard!"
"Ah! for the life of me!" Mother Souchard stammered out, terrified. ”

“ 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 is no longer the only image that tempts and haunts me. Gabrielle, the Rabineau woman, Mother Le Gannec, Demoiselle Landudec, pass before my eyes in wanton postures. Neither virtue, nor goodness, nor unhappiness, nor sacred old age holds me back, and for the scene of these frightful frenzies I purposely choose holy and hallowed places, altars in churches, tombs at the cemeteries. I no longer suffer in my soul; I suffer only in my flesh. ”

“ I must descend into the pit at one dash, in a single, instantaneous, inevitable downfall, even if I crushed my head against the rocks or disappeared in the bottomless mire. With me it was no longer a question of escape. If occasionally the idea did pierce the haze of my mind, if, in the errings of my will-power, I sometimes did perceive a distant way out where duty seemed to call me, I, in order to break away from the idea, in order not to rush hastily toward that end, clung tenaciously to the false pretenses of honor. . . . Could I leave Juliette! I who insisted that she leave Malterre! ”

“ 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 heartrending 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. But here I was losing Juliette, losing her daily, every hour, every minute ”

“ I shall always see this diabolic shadow, always! . . .
"Kiss me, dearie!"
"Don't go out Juliette, don't go out, I implore you!"
"Embrace me. . . closer. . . closer yet. . . ."
She is sad. . . . Through the thick veil I feel on my cheek the moisture of a tear.
"Why do you cry, Juliette. . . . Juliette, for pity's sake, stay with me!"
"Embrace me. . . . I adore you, my Jean. . . . I adore you! . . ."
She is gone. . . . Doors open, close again. . . . She is gone. . . . Outside I hear the noise of a rolling carriage. The noise grows fainter and fainter and dies out. . . . She is gone! . . . ”

“ I have wandered over the beach and the cliffs, blinded by the sand, lashed by the spray, deafened by the wind; with bleeding hands and bruised knees I have climbed rocks inaccessible to men, haunted only by sea ravens; I have spent sorrowful nights on the sea and I have seen sailors crossing themselves in the terror of death; I have rolled from the tops of huge boulders, and with the water up to my neck, swept by dangerous currents, I have fished sea weeds; I have climbed trees and I have dug the earth with a mattock.
The people here thought that I was out of my mind. My arms are broken. ”

“ 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. Juliette reserved to herself the task of arranging my things in the hanging-press which she filled with bunches of fragrant flowers. ”

“ I hate the sea, I hate the sky, the cloud that passes, the wind that blows, the birds that circle in the air; I hate everything that surrounds me, everything that I see, everything that I hear. I come here by force of habit, impelled by an animal instinct which calls animals back to the place that is familiar to them. Like the hare, I have dug my seat in the sand and I always come back to it. Whether it is upon the sand or on the moss, in the shadow of the woods, in the depths of the caves or in the sun of the solitary strand does not matter!
Where can a man who suffers find refuge? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Juliette raised her voice, the wrinkle on her forehead grew rigid.
"Then you want me always to belong to others?"
"Oh! keep still, Juliette! Keep still! Never talk to me like that, never!"
"You are so funny! Come now, be nice and embrace me!"
The next morning, while dressing in the midst of opened trunks and scattered dresses, very much disconcerted by the absence of her chamber maid, she made all sorts of plans for the day. She wanted to take a walk on the jetty, to visit the lighthouse, to fish, to walk to the dune and sit down on the spot where I had cried so much. ”

“ I was happy only when alone with Juliette. There, in the red parlor, under the aegis 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. ”

“ The most wretched women, the most detestable creatures at some time or other call a temporary halt to their life of dissipation and prey; there are moments when they permit the sun to penetrate their chilled hearts, when turning their eyes to heaven they pray for love that pardons and redeems! But Juliette . . . never! Something more insensible than fate, something more relentless than death was driving her, was eternally drawing and spurring her on without respite, without pause, from impure to criminal love, from that which dishonors to that which kills! ”

“ And this image formed Juliette's shadow, so to speak. Far from vanishing, this image, as I looked at it, was assuming in some way a fixed corporeal form. It grimaced, wriggled, leaped with lurid contortions, its foul, obscene lips distended toward Juliette, who seemed to draw the image toward herself and whose hand sank in its hair and passed tremblingly along its body, happy to sully herself with its impure contact. And the sordid juggler was removing Juliette's clothes and showing her to me in a swoon, in the wretched splendor of sin! ”

“ The company was stationed on a farm and I was put on guard duty near the road, at the entrance to a grove, beyond which I could look on an open plain, immense and smooth like the sea. Here and there small woods emerged from the ocean of land like islands; the belfries of the villages, the farms, blurred by the fog, assumed the aspect of a distant veil. In this enormous expanse a great silence reigned, a solitude wherein the least noise, the least thing stirring in the skies, had something mysterious about it which put anguish into one's heart. ”

“ Mother! . . . Ah! yes, mother! . . . Divinized mother, eh? Mother who creates us, sick and wasted race that we are, who stifles the man in the child and hurls us nailless and toothless, stupid and tamed, upon the bedstead of a mistress and the nuptial bed! . . ."
Lirat stopped for a moment; he was choking. Then, bringing his hands together and knotting his crisp fingers in the air, as if gripping an imaginary neck, he shouted madly, terribly:
"This is what should be done with them, all of them, all of them! . . . Do you understand? . . . eh . . . tell me? . . . All of them! ”

“ We are the comforters who will restore to wretched people their repose of life and their peace of conscience. Come to us all ye who wish to live!" And the man with arms uplifted to heaven prayed: "Yes, I wish to live! What must I do in order not to suffer? What must I do in order not to sin?" The trees shook their crowns, the corn field moved its sea of stubble, a buzzing arose from every grass blade, the flowers swayed their little corollas on top of their stems, and from all this a unique voice was heard: "Love us!" ”

“ Juliette!" as if it were possible for Juliette to hear me across the space: "Juliette! Juliette!" Alas! the cry of the sea-gulls and the rumbling noise of the waves beating against the rocks are the only things that answer: "Juliette! Juliette!"
And evening comes. . . . The fogs float up, pink and weightless, enveloping the shore, the village, while the jetty, almost black, assumes the appearance of the hull of a huge vessel without masts; the sun inclines its copper-colored ball toward the sea, tracing a path of rippling, crimson light upon its limitless extent. ”

“ She was like a nestling bird that, without realizing the obscure and nostalgic forces which drew it toward heaven of which it has no knowledge, crushes its head and maims its wings against the cage bars. Instead of craving death as she thought she was, her soul within her, just like that bird that hungered for the unknown skies, hungered for life radiant with tenderness, filled with love; and just like that bird, was dying from this unassuaged hunger. As a child, she gave herself entirely, with all the exaggerations of her fervid nature, to the love for material things and animals ”

“ I almost crush her wrists, and in a suffocating voice which rattles:
"Listen now. . . . If you make another step. . . . if you say another word. . . I'll knock you dead right here on this sidewalk, and tramp you to death under my feet."
With a heavy blow I strike her in the face and with my nails I furiously claw her forehead and cheeks from which blood is gushing.
"Jean! Oh! Jean! . . . Have mercy, please! . . . Jean, mercy; Mercy! . . . Have pity on me! . . . You are killing me. . . ." ”

“ Two long tables of plain wood supported boxes of paint, scrap books, blocks, handles of fans, Japanese albums, casts, a mess of odd and useless things. Near a book case filled with old magazines in a corner there was a pile of pasteboard, canvas, torn sketches with the stretchers sticking through. A shattered sofa creaking with a sound like that of a piano out of tune, whenever one tried to sit on it, two rickety arm chairs, a looking glass without a frame constituted the only luxury of the studio illumined by trembling sunlight. ”