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desire to kill him immediately, to 'caress' him. I filled his glass at
the table, I grew enthusiastic over his playing, I talked to him with
an extremely amiable smile, and I invited him to dinner the following
Sunday, and to play again. I told him that I would invite some of my
acquaintances, lovers of his art, to hear him.
"
Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with
a friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a stone
weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was this,
it was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something which
reminded me of HIM. Not until I reached my study did I realize what it
was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I was
not mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him,
I, without realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I
questioned the servant. That was it. He had come.
"I passed near the parlor, through my children's study-room. Lise, my
daughter, was sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest
child, was beside the table, turning the cover of something or other.
In the parlor I heard a slow arpeggio, and his voice, deadened, and a
denial from her. She said: 'No, no! There is something else!' And it
seemed to me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid
of the piano.
"
My God! How my heart leaped! What were my imaginations! When I remember
the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with fright. My
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