Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part II - I
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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 151
and despair, seeking- comfort in the thought of suicide.
I pulled down the blinds to shut out the daylight, and we
sat together in misery, waiting for night and darkness,
before we ventured out again into the street. But the
summer sun did not set until late, and at eight o’clock
we both felt hungry. Neither of us had any money, and
there was nothing to eat or drink in the cupboard. These
moments were some of the most wretched moments of
my life, and gave me a foretaste of misery to come.
Reproaches, cold kisses, floods of tears, remorse, disgust.
I tried to persuade her to go home and have supper
with her mother, but she was afraid of the daylight ;
moreover, her heart sank at the thought of the necessary
explanation. She had eaten nothing since two o’clock,
and the melancholy prospect of going to bed supperless
aroused the wild beast hunger in her.
She had grown up in a wealthy home, and had been
used to every kind of luxury ; she had no idea what poverty
meant, and consequently she was completely unstrung.
I, who had been familiar with hunger from childhood,
suffered torture to see her in such a desperate position.
I ransacked my cupboard, but could find nothing ; I
searched the drawers of my writing-table, and there,
amongst all sorts of keep-sakes, faded flowers, old love-
letters, discoloured ribbons, I found two sweets which I
had kept in remembrance of a funeral. I offered them to
her just as they were, wrapped in black paper and tinfoil.
A distressing banquet indeed, these sweets in their
mourning dress !
Depressed, humiliated, apprehensive, I raged and
thundered furiously against all respectable women whose
doors were closed to us, who would have none of us.
"Why this hostility and contempt? Had we com-
mitted a crime ? Surely not ; it was but a question of a
straightforward divorce ; we were complying with all the
rules and requirements of the law."
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