Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Epilogue
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
when he laid his weary head on the pillow, worn out by
heavy toil, exhausted by care and anxiety on her account
and the children’s? Trustful, unsuspicious, I had lost
my honour, my manhood, the will to live, my intellect,
my five senses, and alas! much more even, in this ten
years’ sleep in the arms of the sorceress.
Was it possible—the thought filled me with shame—that
a crime had been committed in these fogs in which I
had lived for years like a phantom? An unconscious little
crime, caused by a vague desire for power, by a woman’s
secret wish to get the better of the man in the duel called
matrimony?
Doubtless I had been a fool! Seduced by a married
woman; compelled to marry her to save her honour and
her theatrical career; married under the dotal system and
the condition that each should contribute half of the
expenses, I was ruined after ten years, plundered, for I
had borne the financial burden on my own shoulders
entirely.
At this very moment when my wife denounced me as
a spendthrift, incapable of providing the necessities of
life; when she represented me as the squanderer of her
so-called fortune; at this very moment she owed me forty
thousand crowns, her share of the expenses, according to
the verbal agreement made on our wedding day.
She was my debtor!
Determined to settle all old accounts once and for ever,
I jumped out of bed like a man who has dreamed that
he is paralysed, and on awakening flings away the crutches
with which he had walked in his dream. I dressed quickly
and ran down-stairs to confront my wife.
Through the half-open door my enraptured gaze met
a charming spectacle.
She lay, stretched out at full length, on her tumbled
bed, her lovely little head buried in the pillow over which
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
