(Henriette remains silent, looking at him with surprise.)

Adolphe. [As if speaking to himself] There are crimes not mentioned in the Criminal Code, and these are the worse ones, for they have to be punished by ourselves, and no judge could be more severe than we are against our own selves.

Henriette. [After a pause] Well, that friend of yours, did he find peace?

Adolphe.  After endless self-torture he reached a certain degree of composure, but life had never any real pleasures to offer him.  He never dared to accept any kind of distinction; he never dared to feel himself entitled to a kind word or even well-earned praise:  in a word, he could never quite forgive himself.

Henriette.  Never?  What had he done then?

Adolphe.  He had wished the life out of his father.  And when his father suddenly died, the son imagined himself to have killed him.  Those imaginations were regarded as signs of some mental disease, and he was sent to an asylum.  From this he was discharged after a time as wholly recovered—­as they put it.  But the sense of guilt remained with him, and so he continued to punish himself for his evil thoughts.

Henriette.  Are you sure the evil will cannot kill?

Adolphe.  You mean in some mystic way?

Henriette.  As you please.  Let it go at mystic.  In my own family—­I am sure that my mother and my sisters killed my father with their hatred.  You see, he had the awful idea that he must oppose all our tastes and inclinations.  Wherever he discovered a natural gift, he tried to root it out.  In that way he aroused a resistance that accumulated until it became like an electrical battery charged with hatred.  At last it grew so powerful that he languished away, became depolarised, lost his will-power, and, in the end, came to wish himself dead.

Adolphe.  And your conscience never troubled you?

Henriette.  No, and furthermore, I don’t know what conscience is.

Adolphe.  You don’t?  Well, then you’ll soon learn. [Pause] How do you believe Maurice will look when he gets here?  What do you think he will say?

Henriette.  Yesterday morning, you know, he and I tried to make the same kind of guess about you while we were waiting for you.

Adolphe.  Well?

Henriette.  We guessed entirely wrong.

Adolphe.  Can you tell me why you sent for me?

Henriette.  Malice, arrogance, outright cruelty!

Adolphe.  How strange it is that you can admit your faults and yet not repent of them.

Henriette.  It must be because I don’t feel quite responsible for them.  They are like the dirt left behind by things handled during the day and washed off at night.  But tell me one thing:  do you really think so highly of humanity as you profess to do?