I remembered one of the first storms.… Just the same sort of thunder had rumbled overhead in the forest the first time I was in the forester's house.… The “girl in red” and I were standing at the window then, looking out at the pine trees that were illuminated by the lightning. Dread shone in the eyes of that beautiful creature. She told me her mother had been killed by lightning, and that she herself was thirsting for an effective death.… She wanted to be dressed like the richest lady of the district. She understood that luxurious dress suited her beauty. And, conscious of her vain majesty, she wanted to mount to the top of the “Stone Grave” and there meet an effective death.
Her wish had … though not on the sto …[11]
Losing all hope of falling asleep, I rose and sat down on the bed. The quiet murmur of the rain gradually changed into the angry roar I was so fond of hearing when my soul was free from dread and wrath.… Now this roar appeared to me to be ominous. One clap of thunder succeeded the other without intermission.
“The husband killed his wife!” croaked the parrot.
Those were its last words.… Closing my eyes in pusillanimous fear, I groped my way in the dark to the cage and hurled it into a corner.…
“May the devil take you!” I cried, when I heard the clatter of the falling cage and the squeak of the parrot.
Poor, noble bird! That flight into the corner cost it dear. The next day the cage contained only a cold corpse. Why did I kill it? If its favourite phrase about a husband who killed his wife remin …[12]
My predecessor's mother when she gave up the lodging to me made me pay for the whole of the furniture, not excepting the photographs of people I did not know. But she did not take a kopeck from me for the expensive parrot. On the eve of her departure for Finland she passed the whole night taking leave of her noble bird. I remember the sobs and the lamentations that accompanied this leave-taking. I remember the tears she shed when asking me to take care of her friend until her return. I gave her my word of honour that her parrot would not regret having made my acquaintance. And I had not kept that word! I had killed the bird. I can imagine what the old woman would say if she knew of the fate of her screamer!
XXIII
Somebody tapped gently at my window. The little house in which I lived stood on the high road, and was one of the first houses in the village, and I often heard a tap at my window, especially in bad weather when a wayfarer sought a night's lodging. This time it was no wayfarer who knocked at my window. I went up to the window and waited there for a flash of lightning, when I saw the dark silhouette of a tall thin man. He was standing before the window and seemed to be shivering with cold. I opened the window.