When The Old Un finished reading we all sat silent, smoking, while the dusk grew thicker in the room of the dirty little cottage. I kept shuddering, for the whole time I could see Ursula's head rolling into the basket with the sawdust, the blood spurting from the neck in a thick stream, her lovely black hair stiff and sticky with blood, the glazed eyes, wide open and expressionless, staring up at the heaven in which she had believed. I knew exactly how her warm body had twitched and finally been flung indifferently into a grave.
Oh, I knew so exactly how it had all happened. I knew all the details, for I had seen it so often.
Before my companions could prevent it I had undone the safety catch of my revolver and shot the wooden crucifix and the picture of the Madonna on the wall to pieces. Then I put the bottle to my mouth and emptied it at one draught. The Old Un tried to quiet me but I was in a frenzy. He had to fell me with a blow on the chin.
When I came to we sat down to drink; and I drank as I have never drunk before. For days I was doped with schnapps. I put the bottle to my mouth the moment I wakened and drank till I fell over again. In the end it became too much for The Old Un. He and Porta hauled me out into the yard and put me in a trough till I had become normal again, and for the next few days they never let me sit idle for a second. I was dead tired and black and blue when I went to bed, and as soon as I woke in the morning they took me out to the trough and roused me with icy water. That helped. Slowly I began to become clear in the head again-- clear and cold and dead.
Post je objavljen 22.03.2005. u 11:31 sati.