Maurice leaned forward on the table and looked at his wife with
intensity.
"I hope so, but I don't think it would be for that--I mean because I
thought the deed might not have been avoided. I think I should forgive
because I pitied so, because I know how desperately unhappy I should be
myself if I were to do a hateful thing, a thing that was exceptional,
that was not natural to my nature as I had generally known it. When one
really does love cleanliness, to have thrown one's self down deliberately
in the mud, to see, to feel, that one is soiled from head to foot--that
must be terrible. I think I should forgive because I pitied so. What do
you say, Maurice?"
It was like a return to their talk in London at Caminiti's restaurant,
when Hermione and Artois discussed topics that interested them, and
Maurice listened until Hermione appealed to him for his opinion. But now
he was more deeply interested than his companions.
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know about pitying and forgiving, but I
expect you're right, Hermione."
"How?"
"In what you say about--about the person who's done the wrong thing
feeling awful afterwards. And I think Monsieur Artois is right,
too--about the hour of madness. I'm sure he is right. Sometimes an hour
comes and one seems to forget everything in it. One seems not to be
really one's self in it, but somebody else, and--and--"
Suddenly he seemed to become aware that, whereas Hermione and Artois had
been considering a subject impersonally, he was introducing the personal
element into the conversation. He stopped short, looked quickly from
Hermione to Artois, and said: "What I mean is that I imagine it's so, and that I've known fellows--in
London, you know--who've done such odd things that I can only explain it
like that. They must have--well, they must have gone practically mad for
the moment. You--you see what I mean, Hermione?"
The question was uneasy.
"Yes, but I think we can control ourselves. If we couldn't, remorse would
lose half its meaning. I could never feel remorse because I had been
mad--horror, perhaps, but not remorse. It seems to me that remorse is our
sorrow for our own weakness, the heart's cry of 'I need not have done the
hateful thing, and I did it, I chose to do it!' But I could pity, I could
pity, and forgive because of my pity."
Gaspare came out with coffee.
"And then, Emile, you must have a siesta," said Hermione. "This is a
tiring day for you. Maurice and I will leave you quite alone in the
sitting-room."