She had been living as an actress at one of
the small theaters, and had attempted suicide in sheer disgust with
life. I had played with the same idea for years. We had both struggled
with the world and hated it. Her imagination was more morbid than my
own, and in her quieter moments, when her affections were roused, she
was wonderfully tender and devoted. When she left the hospital she put
herself under my protection. I believe she loved me, and no one had ever
loved me before. I know she took possession of me, body and soul. I
married her. I would just as willingly have jumped into the Seine with
her if she had preferred it. For three months we lived together while I
finished the picture which I called the Priestess of Delphi, painted
from my drawings of her in her agony. The picture made a great noise in
Paris, and brought me some new friends, among the rest one who, I think,
really saved me from Charenton. Hazard called at my studio just as my
troubles were beginning to tear me to pieces. My wife had the temper of
a fury, and all the vices of Paris. Excitement was her passion; she
could not stand the quiet of an artist's life; yet her Bohemian
instincts came over her only in waves, and when they left her in peace
she still had splendid qualities that held me to her. Hazard came in
upon us one day in the middle of a terrible scene when she was
threatening again to take her own life, and trying, or pretending to try
to take mine.
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