XVI

He read the same morning on the posters that _she_ was playing
that evening. He watched for her after the performance and saw her
distributing hand-shakes to sundry acquaintances before driving
off. He was suddenly struck with something hard and cruel in
her, which he had not observed in the interview of the night
before. Then he discovered that he hated her, abominated her
with all the force of his mind and muscles and nerves. He longed
to tear her to pieces, to rend and crush her. It made him furious
to think she was moving, talking, laughing,--in a word, that she
was alive. At least it was only fair she should suffer, that
life should wound her and make her heart bleed. He was rejoiced
at the thought that she must die one day, and then nothing of
her would be left, of her rounded shape and the warmth of her
flesh; none would ever again see the superb play of light in
her hair and eyes, the reflections, now pale, now pearly, of
her dead-white skin. But her body, that filled him with such
rage, would be young and warm and supple for long years yet,
and lover after lover would feel it quiver and awake to passion.
She would exist for other men, but not for him. Was that to be
borne? Ah! the deliciousness of plunging a dagger in that warm,
living bosom! Ah! the bliss, the voluptuousness of holding her
pinned beneath one knee and demanding between two stabs:

"Am I ridiculous now?"

He was still muttering suchlike maledictions when he felt a hand
laid on his shoulder. Wheeling round, he saw a quaint figure--a