Madame X says
Hush, you needn’t speak -I understand it all! It was because -and because -and because! Yes, yes! Now all the accounts balance. That’s it. Fie, I won’t sit at the same table with you.That’s the reason I had to embroider tulips -which I hate -on his slippers, because you are fond of tulips; that’s why we go to Lake Mälarn in the summer, because you don’t like salt water; that’s why my boy is named Eskil -because it’s your father’s name; that’s why I wear your colors, read your authors, eat your favorite dishes, drink your drinks -chocolate, for instance; that’s why -oh -my God -it’s terrible, when I think about it; it’s terrible. Everything, everything came from you to me, even your passions. Your soul crept into mine, like a worm into an apple, ate and ate, bored and bored, until nothing was left but the rind and a little black dust within. I wanted to get away from you, but I couldn’t; you lay like a snake
and charmed me with your black eyes; I felt that when I lifted my wings they only dragged me down; I lay in the water with bound feet, and the stronger I strove to keep up the deeper I worked myself down, down, until I sank to the bottom, where you lay like a giant crab to clutch me in your claws -and there I am lying now.
I hate you, hate you, hate you! And you only sit there silent -silent and indifferent; indifferent whether it’s new moon or waning moon, Christmas or New Year’s, whether others are happy or unhappy; without power to hate or to love; as quiet as a stork a rat hole -you couldn’t scent your prey and capture it, but you could lie in wait for it! You sit here in your corner of the cafL; -did you know it’s called “The Rat Trap” for you? -and read the papers to see if misfortune hasn’t befallen some one, to see if some one hasn’t been given notice at the theatre, perhaps; you sit here and calculate about your next victim and reckon on your chances of recompense like a pilot in a shipwreck. Poor Amelie, I pity you, nevertheless, because I know you are unhappy, unhappy like one who has been wounded, and angry because you are wounded. I can’t be angry with you, no matter how much I want to be -because you come out the weaker one. Yes, all that with Bob doesn’t trouble me. What is that to me, after all? And what difference does it make whether I learned to drink chocolate from you or some one else.