intoxicate your vision with their harmony. For three years she was the
only being that existed for me on the earth! How I suffered; for she
deceived me as she deceived everyone! Why? For no reason; just for the
pleasure of deceiving. And when I found it out, when I treated her as a
common girl and a beggar, she said quietly: 'Are we married?'

"Since I have been here I have thought so much about her that at last I
understand her. She is Manon Lescaut come back to life. It is Manon, who
could not love without deceiving; Marion for whom love, amusement, money,
are all one."

He was silent. After a few minutes he resumed:

"When I had spent my last sou on her she said simply:

"'You understand, my dear boy, that I cannot live on air and weather. I
love you very much, better than anyone, but I must live. Poverty and I
could not keep house together."

"And if I should tell you what a horrible life I led with her! When I
looked at her I would just as soon have killed her as kissed her. When I
looked at her . . . I felt a furious desire to open my arms to embrace
and strangle her. She had, back of her eyes, something false and
intangible that made me execrate her; and that was, perhaps, the reason I
loved her so well. The eternal feminine, the odious and seductive
feminine, was stronger in her than in any other woman. She was full of
it, overcharged, as with a venomous and intoxicating fluid. She was a
woman to a greater extent than any one has ever been."

"And when I went out with her she would look at all men in such a manner