§ 6
In the hot kitchen of No. 24, Kitchener Road, Mr. Weston made himself some tea and cut some bread and butter. He had not much time to spare. He must add a few pages to his paper. Then he must wash and shave and make himself respectable. During his meal he thought once or twice of those old days when Laura, his wife, had been there to get his tea ready for him, to fuss round the books and papers he brought home, and to say: “Going out to-night, are you? Because if not, there’s your slippers. And let’s ’ave your dirty boots....” He thought, too, of Catherine: a little child, asking him absurd questions, messing about with his exercise books, begging him for half-used sheets to scribble on. But there was nothing regretful in his thoughts of those past days. On the contrary, he rather inclined to moralize: “I don’t know whether I’m not actually better off than I was then. At any rate I’m free, and I can do what I like. It’s not so bad, really.”
He wrote down a few sentences about Shakespeare.
“That’ll have to do,” he thought. “It doesn’t really matter it being a bit short.”
He poured himself out a cupful of hot water for shaving. It was one of the advantages of living alone that he could shave in the kitchen if he liked.
Curiously enough he paused after pouring out the water.
“Shall I or shall I not?” he pondered. He examined his chin in the mirror. “I suppose I’ll do,” he decided, “it won’t be noticed in the gas-light.”
Then he saw the water he had poured out.
“Oh, well,” he thought, “perhaps I will, after all....”
He took out his razor, one of the old-fashioned kind, stropped it carefully and lathered himself.
While he was shaving he thought: “I wish I hadn’t told that boy Jones I’d send him to Clotters on Monday morning. Clotters won’t like it much....”
Suddenly, and seemingly without any premeditation, he thrust the soapy razor into his throat, just above the windpipe....