Explore "The Woman Beater" by Israel Zangwill on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
But at last she astonished him by a sketch plan of the elopement, so / detailed, even to band-boxes and the Paris night route _via_ Dieppe, / that no further room for doubt was left in his intoxicated soul, and / he was actually further astonished when, just as he was putting his / handbag into the hansom, a telegram was handed to him saying: "Gone / to Homburg. Letter follows."
He stood still for a moment on the pavement in utter distraction. What / did it mean? Had she failed him again? Or was it simply that she had / changed the city of refuge from Paris to Homburg? He was about to name / the new station to the cabman, but then, "letter follows. " Surely that / meant that he was to wait for it. Perplexed and miserable, he / stood with the telegram crumpled up in his fist. What a ridiculous / situation! He had wrought himself up to the point of breaking with the / world and his past, and now -- it only remained to satisfy the cabman!