The bird continued, with a movement of its head:
"Wait, wait, wait, I'll teach you to dawdle!"
What passed through her mind? She felt, she knew that it was no other than he, the dead man, who had returned; who had disguised himself in the feathers of this brute to begin afresh his old work of torment; that he would swear at her all day long, as he had done before, and bite her, and yell at her with taunting words to raise the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she made a wild rush, opened the cage, seized the bird, which tore her flesh with beak and claws in its struggle to defend itself; but she held him with all her strength, in both her hands, and throwing herself upon the floor she rolled upon him with the frenzy of one possessed, crushed him, reduced him to a rag of flesh, a small, green object, devoid of speech or movement and which dangled from her hand inanimate; then, taking a dish-clout, she wrapped the shapeless mass in it as in a shroud, went out by the door, barefooted, in her chemise, crossed the wharf, against which the sea was breaking in small waves, and, shaking out the cloth, let fall into the water that small dead object that was like nothing so much as a handful of grass; then she returned to the house, and throwing herself upon her knees before the empty cage, all wrought up by what she had done, sought forgiveness from God the Comforter, sobbing, the while, as if she had been guilty of some horrible crime.
