* Here, unfortunately, there are again erasures. It is evident
Kamyshev blotted out not at the time of writing but afterwards. At
the end of the novel I will draw _special_ attention to these
erasures.—A. Ch.
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 . . .*
* Here nearly a whole page is carelessly blotted out. Only a few
words are spared, which give no clue to the meaning of what is
obliterated.—A. Ch.
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!