And destiny,
as I have already intimated, had planted the path through the wood with
evil-smelling fungi, thickly and variously planted it, not only on the
right side, but on the left.
A small shopman is in such a melancholy position, if his wife turns out a
disloyal partner. His capital is all tied up in his business, and to leave
her means to join the unemployed in some strange part of the earth. The
luxuries of divorce are beyond him altogether. So that the good old
tradition of marriage for better or worse holds inexorably for him, and
things work up to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives to
death, and dukes betray theirs; but it is among the small clerks and
shopkeepers nowadays that it comes most often to a cutting of throats.
Under the circumstances it is not so very remarkable--and you must take it
as charitably as you can--that the mind of Mr. Coombes ran for a while on
some such glorious close to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought of
razors, pistols, bread-knives, and touching letters to the coroner
denouncing his enemies by name, and praying piously for forgiveness.
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