Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part III - XIII
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236 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
was fixed. But now a new difficulty arose, a difficulty
which I had long foreseen and which was accompanied by
a series of unpleasant scenes. The dog was still alive !
How much annoj^ance it had caused me already ! especially
as so much attention was devoted to him that the children
were habitually neglected.
However, the day had dawned when to my inexpressible
joy Marie’s idol and my evil genius, old, diseased, half-
rotten, was to end its days ; Marie herself now desired the
animal’s death, and only the thought of the innocent
pleasure which its disappearance would cause me led her
to postpone the " dog-question " again and again, and
invent fresh annoyances to make me pay for the longed-for
relief.
But at last a farewell feast was arranged. She made
heart-rending scenes, had a fowl killed, of which I, still
a semi-invalid, received the bones, and then—we were in
the country at the time—she went to town, taking the dog
with her.
After two days’ absence she announced her return in
a few cold words. What else could a murderer expect?
Full of happiness, freed of a burden which I had borne
for six years, I went to the landing-stage to meet her,
expecting to find her alone. She received me as if I were
a poisoner, her eyes were suffused with tears, and when I
approached to kiss her, she pushed me aside. Carrying
in her arms a large parcel of extraordinary shape, she
walked on, slowly, as if she were walking in a funeral
procession, with a certain rhythm as if to the strains of a
funeral march.
The parcel held the corpse ! The funeral ceremony had
been reserved for me ! She ordered a coffin and sent for
two men to dig a grave. Although determined to have
nothing to do with the matter, I was compelled to be pre-
sent at the obsequies of the murdered innocent. It was
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