Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part III - IV
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196 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
"My nerves are on edge, don’t irritate me."
" Fm not your cook! "
" I never said you were, but don’t prevent the cook
we have from doing her work !
"
" You forget that Amy, as our paying guest, is entitled
to the services of our maid."
"Didn’t you hear me calHng? "
"No! "
She was telHng me Ues. ... I felt as if my heart would
break.
Dinner—my eagerly-looked-for dinner—was a long
torture. The afternoon Avas dismal ; Marie wept and
inveighed against matrimony, holy matrimony, the only
true happiness in the world, crying on the shoulder of
her friend, covering her villainous little dog with kisses.
Cruel, false, deceitful—and sentimental !
And so it went on during the whole summer in infinite
variety. I spent my Sundays with two imbeciles and a
dog. They were trying to make me believe that all our
unhappiness was due to my irritable nerves and persuade
me to consult a doctor.
I had intended to take my wife for a sail on Sunday
morning, but she did not get up before dinner time ; after
dinner it was too late.
And yet this tender-hearted woman, who tortured me
with pin-pricks, cried bitterly one morning because the
gardener was killing a rabbit for dinner, and confessed
to me in the evening that she had been praying that the
poor little beast’s sufferings might be short.
Not long ago I saw somewhere a statement made by
a psychopathist to the effect that an exaggerated love for
animals combined with indifference towards the sufferings
of one’s fellow-creatures is a symptom of insanity.
Marie could pray for a rabbit and at the same time
torment her husband with smiling lips.
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