Please don't go; I want you.
(A pause) At any rate it's gayer when you're here.
I keep expecting something to happen, as if the house were going to tumble down about our ears.
We have been very, very sinful! Oh, the sins that I have committed ... I've always squandered money at random like a madwoman; I married a man who made nothing but debts.
My husband drank himself to death on champagne; he was a fearful drinker.
Then for my sins I fell in love and went off with another man; and immediately--that was my first punishment--a blow full on the head ... here, in this very river; and I went abroad, right, right away, never to come back any more, never to see this river again....
I shut my eyes and ran, like a mad thing, and he came after me, pitiless and cruel.
I bought a villa at Mentone, because he fell ill there, and for three years I knew no rest day or night; the sick man tormented and wore down my soul.
Then, last year, when my villa was sold to pay my debts, I went off to Paris, and he came and robbed me of everything, left me and took up with another woman, and I tried to poison myself....
It was all so stupid, so humiliating....
(Wiping away her tears) Lord, Lord, be merciful to me; forgive my sins! Do not punish me any more!
(Taking a telegram from her pocket) I got this to-day from Paris.... He asks to be forgiven, begs me to come back....