I remember, Madame, your indignant voice crying, ‘He should have killed himself there and then.’ But what good would that have done her? Should he have killed her too? This young girl loved him deeply, loved him to distraction. An inevitable, inherited passion had thrown this innocent virgin in a bound of joy into this man’s arms. She had acted under the influence of selfless, unpremeditated passion, the power of heedless instinct which flings the male and the female of the species together. And if he had killed himself what would have become of her? She would have died dishonoured, hopeless and in hideous torture. What should he do? Provide her with a dowry? Find her a husband? She would have died of a broken heart, surely. She would not have accepted his money or his offer of a husband other than himself. It was to him that she had given herself, not to anyone else. He would have ruined her life, destroyed all her hopes of happiness. He would have condemned her to eternal abandonment, despair, tears, isolation and possibly death.

And of course he loved her, too! He loved her with an agonizing passion. Supposing she were his daughter, what of it? For had it not been the random laws of fertility, the blind power of reproduction, a momentary contact that had made a daughter of this being to which no legal tie bound him, whom he cherished as he had cherished her mother and in whom was now incarnated the two passions of his life? Besides it was not even certain she was his daughter. What if she were? Who would know? And returning to him came the memory of the promises he had made to the dying girl. He had promised to give his life, to do anything, legal or illegal, to secure the happiness of the child. He loved her again, reliving the memory of the sweet and terrible pledge he had made, and was torn apart by pain and desire. Who would know … since the other … the father … was dead?

Right! he said to himself, this wretched secret could consume me for the rest of my life. Since she could never dream what happened I shall carry the burden of it entirely on my own.

He asked for her hand and married her.

I don’t know if he was happy, Madame. All I do know is that I would have done exactly the same.

TWO FRIENDS

Paris, under siege, was starving and breathing her last.1 The sight of a sparrow on a rooftop was rare and even the sewers were increasingly depopulated. People were eating anything they could lay their hands on.