Mad?
Am I mad or jealous? I know not which, but I suffer horribly. I committed a crime, it is true, a mad crime, but are not insane jealousy, passionate love, betrayed and lost, and the terrible pain I endure, enough to make anyone commit a crime, without actually being a criminal?
Oh! I have suffered, suffered continually, acutely, terribly. I have loved this woman to madness—and yet, is it true? Did I love her? No, no! She owned me body and soul, I was, and am, her plaything, she ruled me by her smile, her look, the divine form of her body. I fight against the domination of her physical appearance, but the woman contained in that body, I despise, hate and execrate. I always have hated, despised and execrated her, for she is but an impure, perfidious, bestial, filthy creature, the woman of perdition, the treacherous sensual animal, in whom there is no soul; she is the human animal, even less than that, she is but a mass of soft flesh in which dwells infamy!
The first few months of our union were deliciously strange. In her arms I was exhausted by the frenzy of insatiable desire. Her eyes drew my lips as though they could quench my thirst. They were gray at noon, shaded green at twilight, and blue at sunrise. I am not mad. I swear they were of these three colours. In moments of love they were blue as though they had been bruised; the pupils dilated and nervous. Her lips trembled and often the tip of her pink moist tongue could be seen, quivering like that of a snake. Her heavy eyelids would be slowly raised, revealing that ardent, languorous look which used to madden me. When I took her in my arms I used to gaze into her eyes, trembling, seized not only with an unceasing desire to possess her, but also to kill this beast.
When she walked across the room each step resounded in my heart, and when she began to undress, her dress falling from her, and emerged infamous but radiant from the white mass of linen and lace, I felt in all my limbs, in my legs and arms, in my panting chest, an infinite and cowardly weakness.
One day I saw that she was tired of me. I saw it in her eyes on waking. Leaning over her I awaited this first look of hers every morning. I awaited it, filled with hatred, rage, and contempt for this sleeping brute whose slave I was. But when she fixed those pale, limpid blue eyes upon me, that languishing glance, tired with the lassitude of recent caresses, a rapid fire consumed me, exasperating my desires.
When she opened her eyes that day I saw a dull, indifferent look; a look devoid of desire, and I knew then she was tired of me. I saw it, knew it, felt it, and understood immediately that all was over, and each hour and minute proved to me that I was right. When I beckoned her with my arms and lips she shrank from me.
“Leave me alone,” she said. “You are horrid! Will you never leave me alone?”
Then I became jealous, slyly, suspiciously, secretly jealous, like a dog. I knew she would soon be aroused again, that another man would excite her passions. I was insanely jealous; but I am not insane, no indeed! I watched her and waited; not that she had betrayed me, but she was cold and indifferent.
At times she would say:
“Men disgust me!” Alas! it was too true.
Then I became jealous of her own existence, of her indifference, of her nights alone, of her actions, of her thoughts, which I knew to be impure, jealous of all that my imagination suspected; and when she awakened sometimes with that same look of lassitude which used to follow our ardent nights, as though some desire had haunted her mind and stirred her passions, I suffocated with anger, and an irresistible desire to choke her, to break her with my knee, to seize her by the throat, and make her confess the shameful secrets of her heart took hold of me.
Am I insane? No.
One night I saw that she was happy. I felt, in fact I was convinced, that a new passion ruled her. She was trembling as she used to do after my caresses, her eyes shone, she was feverish and her whole being gave out that odour of desire which used to drive me mad.
I feigned ignorance, but I watched her closely. I discovered nothing, however. I waited a week, a month, almost a year. She expanded in the joy of an inexplicable ardour, and was soothed by the happiness of some elusive caress.
At last I guessed. No, I am not insane, I swear I am not. How can I explain this inconceivable, horrible thing? How can I make myself understood? This is how I guessed.
She came in one night from a long ride on horseback and sank exhausted in a seat facing me. An unnatural flush tinted her cheeks, her breast was heaving, her legs trembling, and her eyes were swollen. I was not mistaken, I had seen her look like that; she loved! I almost lost my head, and so as not to look at her I turned to the window. A valet was leading her horse to the stable and she stood and watched the prancing, fiery animal disappear; then she fell asleep almost immediately. I thought and thought all night. My mind wandered through mysteries too deep to conceive. Who can fathom the perversity and strange caprices of a sensual woman? Who can understand their incredible caprices and strange satisfactions of the strangest fancies?
Every morning at dawn she set out at a gallop across the fields and through the woods and dales, and each time she came back languid; as though exhausted by love. At last I understood. It was of the horse I was jealous—of the wind which caressed her face, of the drooping leaves and of the sunbeams which touched her forehead through the branches, of the saddle which carried her and felt the clasp of her thighs! It was all those things which made her so happy and brought her back to me satiated; exhausted! I resolved to be revenged. I became very attentive. Every time she came back from her ride I helped her down and the horse made a vicious rush at me. She would pat him on the neck, kiss his quivering nostrils, without even wiping her lips, and the perfume of her body, warmed as though she had been in bed, mingled in my nostrils with the strong animal smell of the horse.
I waited for chance. She used to take the same path every morning, through a little birch wood, which finally lost itself in the forest. I got up before dawn, took a rope in my hands, and hid my pistols in my breast, as if I were going to fight a duel. I ran to the path she loved so well, I drew the rope across, tied it to two trees, and then hid in the grass.
With my ear to the ground I heard her galloping in the distance, then under the trees like an arch I saw her coming at a furious pace; her cheeks flushed, an insane look in her eyes. She seemed enraptured; transported into another sphere. I was not mistaken! The rapid ride gave her senses a thrill of solitary pleasure.
The animal struck the rope with his forefeet and fell. I caught her in my arms, for I am strong enough to lift an ox, and then I approached the horse, who was watching us, and while he again tried to bite me, I put my pistol close to his ear, and shot him as I would a man.
She turned on me and dealt me two terrific blows across the face with her riding-whip which felled me, and as she rushed at me again, I shot her!
Tell me, Am I insane?