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When I reached home I fell upon my bed without undressing.

‘He has no shame, again he’s gone swimming with all his clothes on!’ grumbled Polycarp as he pulled off my wet and dirty garments. ‘Again I have to suffer for it! Again we have the noble, the educated, behaving worse than any chimneysweep… I don’t know what they taught you in the ‘versity!’

I, who could not bear the human voice or man’s face, wanted to shout at Polycarp to leave me in peace, but the words died on my lips. My tongue was as enfeebled and powerless as the rest of my body. Though it was painful for me, I was obliged to let Polycarp pull off all my clothes, even to my wet underlinen.

‘He might turn round at least,’ my servant grumbled as he rolled me over from side to side like a doll. ‘Tomorrow I’ll give notice! Never again… for no amount of money! I, old fool, have had enough of this! May the devil take me if I remain any longer!’

The fresh warm linen did not warm or calm me. I trembled so much with rage and fear that my very teeth chattered. My fear was inexplicable. I was not frightened by apparitions or by spectres risen from the grave, not even by the portrait of Pospelov, my predecessor, which was hanging just above my head. He never took his lifeless eyes off my face, and seemed to wink at me. But I was quite unaffected when I looked at him. My future was not brilliant, but all the same I could say with great probability that there was nothing that threatened me, that there were no black clouds near. I was not expecting to die yet; illness held no terrors for me, and I took no heed of personal misfortunes… What did I fear, then, and why did my teeth chatter?

I could not even understand my wrath…

The Count’s ‘secret’ could not have enraged me so greatly. I had nothing to do with the Count, nor with the marriage, which he had concealed from me.

It only remains to explain the condition of my soul at that time by fatigue and nervous derangement. That is the only explanation I can find.

When Polycarp left the room I pulled the blankets up to my head and wanted to sleep. It was dark and quiet. The parrot moved restlessly about its cage, and the regular ticking of the hanging clock in Polycarp’s room could be heard through the wall. Peace and quiet reigned everywhere else. Physical and moral exhaustion overpowered me, and I began to doze… I felt a certain weight gradually fall from me, and hateful images melt into mist… I remember I even began to dream. I dreamed that on a bright winter morning I was walking along the Nevsky in Petersburg, and, having nothing to do, looked into the shop windows. My heart was light and gay… I had no reason to hurry. I had nothing to do, I was absolutely free. The consciousness that I was far from my village, far from the Count’s estate and from the cold and sullen lake, made me feel all the more peaceful and gay. I stopped before one of the largest windows and began to examine ladies’ hats. The hats were familiar to me… I had seen Olga in one of them, Nadia in another: a third I had seen on the day of the shooting party on the fair-haired head of that Zosia, who had arrived so unexpectedly… Familiar faces smiled at me under the hats… When I wanted to say something to them they all three blended together into one large red face. This face moved its eyes angrily and stuck out its tongue… Somebody pressed my neck from behind…

‘The husband killed his wife!’ the red face shouted.

I shuddered, cried out, and jumped out of my bed as if I had been stung. I had terrible palpitations of the heart, a cold sweat came out on my brow.

‘The husband killed his wife!’ the parrot repeated again. ‘Give me some sugar! How stupid you are! Fool!’

‘It was only the parrot,’ I said to calm myself as I got into bed again. ‘Thank God!’

I heard a monotonous murmur… It was the rain pattering on the roof… The clouds I had seen when walking on the banks of the lake had now covered the whole sky. There were slight flashes of lightning that lighted up the portrait of the late Pospelov… The thunder rumbled just over my bed…

‘The last thunderstorm of this summer,’ I thought.

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 a dramatic death… She wanted to be dressed like the richest lady of the district. She knew that luxurious dress suited her beauty. And, proudly conscious of her splendour, she wanted to mount to the top of the ‘Stone Grave’ and there meet a sensational end.

Her wish had… though not on the sto…

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 miserable 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…

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 squawking pet!