Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part IV - VI
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chair and stroked my head. Unfortunately the little
scene was acted before a mirror. A furtive glance showed
me her pale, terrified face, her troubled eyes which
scrutinised my features... our searching glances met.
Contrary to her habit she came and sat on my knee, put
her arms round me lovingly and murmured that she was
very sleepy.
“What wrong have you committed to-day that you
caress me like this?” I asked.
She hid her face on my shoulder, kissed me and went
out of the room, bidding me good-night.
I am perfectly well aware that this sort of evidence
would not satisfy a jury, but it was sufficient for me,
who knew her so well.
And to my thinking the evidence was strengthened by
the fact that a short time ago my brother-in-law had
forbidden the doctor his house, because the latter had
made advances to my sister.
I was therefore determined not to return to my own
country. At home I should be compelled to associate
daily with men whom I distrusted, and to escape the
ridicule which inevitably falls to the share of the duped
husband, I fled to Vienna.
Alone in my hotel, the vision of the wife I had
worshipped haunted me. Utterly unable to work, I
began a correspondence with her. I wrote her love-letters
twice a day. The unknown town affected me like a
cemetery. I moved through the thronging crowd like a
phantom. But after a while my imagination began to
people this solitude. I invented a romantic story for the
sole reason of introducing Marie into this dreary desert,
and soon life was pulsing everywhere. I pictured her as
a famous singer, and to lend my dream a semblance of
reality and make of the fine city a more convincing
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