suppose you were to marry! As I have done! To take such a good wife. And if she were to slave for you as if you were a tyrannical child. And if you were her little boy, because she is afraid of having children, and has no children. To have such a nest with pillows . . . as I have! Why man, you don’t know what happiness is!”
“You wrong your wife,” protested Vojtech, quietly.
“I really wrong her,” answered Karel. '“And more than that, I am quite tired of her. I’ve had enough of her. You can tell her that, but tell her also that I know how I wrong her. Tell her that she was a perfect example of an official’s wife. Oh, God, it is almost a crime! Just imagine it. It is quite certain that she waited for me to-night. The whole evening she keeps the fire bright, looks at the thermometer, lays the table, and waits. Imagine it, she has no idea yet. Even now she waits, shudders, and sits on the bed, puzzled. . . . Until in the morning you will come to her and say: ‘Madam, your husband has run away.’”
“I shall not say it!”
“But you must say it. ‘He ran away because he became loathsome to himself. He became terribly tired of all that he knew about himself. Just think of it, madam, suddenly he found in himself an unknown soul, something worse, strange and furious, and he wants to begin to do something with it. He can’t sleep with you now, because your husband was quite another person; he was just a domestic idiot, who drank warmed beer, and whom you loved.” Just tell her that, Vojtech, do you understand? Say to her: ‘Madam, he hates warmed beer, he hates you yourself, because last night he drank iced and burning wine and was unfaithful to you. He found a whore and he would return to her.’ . . . Ah, man,” Karel passed at once from the solemn dictatorial voice to a passionate half-audible tone, “it was dreadful at this girl’s. If you could only see the misery! Good God, man, what conditions! Her feet were wet and cold as ice. It was impossible to warm them. I must return there because of all the misery. If you could only see how she lives! It can’t be altered by charity, either, you see she spends it all on drink. But someone should be with her. . . .”
“Karel,” said Vojtech, hoarsely.
“Wait, don’t interrupt.” Karel defended himself, “It’s not only that. That’s only an unimportant thing. I didn’t think about
