THE JAIL
might stay with him a bit. And my mother-in-law again started nagging. Then my wife came in, we had supper,—she was quite excited, and absent-minded as if her thoughts were somewhere else. I didn't want to make a row, and so I asked no questions, but when she ran off again next day and came back so late. I said that she could and should stay at home for the short while I was there, and go gadding about when I went away. Then she burst out crying. It was an angry crying, and she had no excuse, but kept pitying herself and abusing me. I begrudged her the least thing, she said, and wanted to keep her cooped up at home, and army life had turned me into a wild animal, and I was like a tyrant,—and my mother-in-law had her say too. So I again said nothing. But when it went on like that for two weeks,—and I hadn’t been allowed to touch her the whole time,—you know, gentlemen, that was more than I could stand. My leave was up and I saw that I was only in the way at home. She had somebody else, she went with somebody else,—she gave somebody else what she refused me,—a fine sort of husband I was! And so the last evening when she came back from her gadding about, I took the poker and gave her one on the forehead, until the blood came out like water from a pump. And when my mother-in-law began to go for me, I gave her one too with the poker. There they lay side by side, the blood kept on flowing, and I went to the police and gave myself up".
"When was that?" asked Karl yawning.
"A week ago. They took me, sent me here and there, always kept me locked up,—here I'm to be tried, they said".
The room was quiet. The defence-corps man looked around him, took off his clothes, put his bundle between two straw mattresses, and then lay down. I heard him sighing for a while, then he began to breathe with the regularity of a man who is sleeping peacefully.
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