‘And I don’t intend to stop till I’ve said everything I have to say to you. If you try and stop me I shall raise my voice so that the servants can hear. The only reason I let you in was because these two could witness what I have to say and restrain you if necessary. Listen. You’ve always been repellent to me and I’ve been perfectly honest with you about it. I never lie, Monsieur. You married me against my wishes. You forced my needy parents to hand me over to you because you were rich. They made me do it and I have to say I wept. So in effect you bought me. And as soon as you had me in your power, as soon as I became your companion, someone who was attached to you, who had to put up with your intimidation and your manipulation, as soon as I became your devoted wife and tried to love you as much as it was possible for me to do, you turned jealous. You became the most jealous man that’s ever lived. You spied on me. You were low. Your methods were base. You behaved in a way degrading to yourself and insulting to me. I hadn’t been married more than eight months before you started thinking me capable of all kinds of affairs. You said so to my face. The shame of it! And since you could hardly prevent me from being beautiful and attractive, to be considered in every drawing room and by every newspaper one of the prettiest women in Paris, you looked for ways to remove me from this atmosphere of adulation. You hit on the disgusting plan of making me permanently pregnant so that in the end men would be put off. Don’t try and deny it! I didn’t realize for a long time. I never guessed. But you even bragged about it to your sister. She told me. She’s fond of me and she thought it was barbaric and obscene! Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten all those fights! The locks you forced, the doors you broke down. What a life you made me endure for eleven years! A brood mare in your stud. And as soon as I did get pregnant, you yourself found me unattractive and I never saw you for months. I was packed off to the country, to the family château. Put out to grass, to pasture, till I dropped the foal. And then when I reappeared, fresh and pretty again, indestructible and still an object of attraction, when at last I could hope to live as a wealthy young woman of the world, once again you would become jealous. Again you would start pursuing me with that wretched desire with which you’re consumed this very minute as you’re sitting there. It’s not a desire to possess me – I would never have refused you that – it’s the desire to disfigure me! And something else happened which was equally despicable. It was a mystery to me and it took me a long time to discover what was going on. But in the end I became expert at knowing how your mind worked. I realized that the bond between you and your children was based on the security they gave you while I was expecting them. Your love for them was in direct proportion to your hatred for me. They represented the temporary removal of your cowardly fears. It was with glee that you watched me grow big with them. How often did I feel that glee in you! I saw it in your eyes! I knew it. You love your children as victories over me, not as your own flesh and blood. They are your triumphs over my youth and charm. They counteracted all the compliments I received, as well as those made outside my hearing. You were proud of the children. You paraded them with you, took them for rides in the Bois, for donkey rides at Montmorency.2 You took them to matinées where you could be seen surrounded by them and where everybody would say over and over again what a marvellous father you were …’