Quotation from: The Secret Agent

Written by: Joseph Conrad


After listening for some time Mrs Verloc lowered her gaze deliberately on
her husband's body. It's attitude of repose was so home-like and
familiar that she could do so without feeling embarrassed by any
pronounced novelty in the phenomena of her home life. Mr Verloc was
taking his habitual ease. He looked comfortable.


By the position of the body the face of Mr Verloc was not visible to Mrs
Verloc, his widow. Her fine, sleepy eyes, travelling downward on the
track of the sound, became contemplative on meeting a flat object of bone
which protruded a little beyond the edge of the sofa. It was the handle
of the domestic carving knife with nothing strange about it but its
position at right angles to Mr Verloc's waistcoat and the fact that
something dripped from it. Dark drops fell on the floorcloth one after
another, with a sound of ticking growing fast and furious like the pulse
of an insane clock. At its highest speed this ticking changed into a
continuous sound of trickling. Mrs Verloc watched that transformation
with shadows of anxiety coming and going on her face. It was a trickle,
dark, swift, thin. . . . Blood!

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