The Adulteress

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IT HAS ALWAYS SURPRISED me that people who have lived conventionally, observing all the rules laid down by society, will suddenly appear to change their entire personality and act in a manner alien to everything they have been before. That I should be one of them was as great a shock to me as it would have been to those who knew me well—if they ever discovered it; that was why it was absolutely necessary to keep it secret; there were, of course, other, more practical, reasons for doing so.

I have often tried to understand how it could have happened to me. I have tried to make excuses. Is it possible for people to be possessed? Some of the mystics of the past declared they were. Was it some inner force? Was it the spirit of one long departed which had entered my body and made me throw aside the principles of a lifetime and act as I did? What is the use of trying to placate my conscience? The rational explanation can only be that I did not know myself until I came face to face with temptation.

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