“Do you know—dear doctor—my mother was the model of a noble woman. She was virtuous, diligent, well educated, sweet tempered, a veritable angel in human form. In spite of it all—I don’t know why—I was more strongly attached to father. Possibly because he played more with us and paid more attention to our games and excursions while mother was more strict in her training and careful to inculcate in us a sense of orderliness. Mother died of a painful growth. I said to myself: ‘Now you must take mother’s place with father. You must take care of him.’ Father was already 62 years of age, and suffered occasionally of gouty attacks. I was tremendously shocked to see my father put aside mourning after a few weeks and change into an elegant man-about-town,—he the respectable town official, who had never before gone a step without mother.... He started to frequent nightly disreputable dives and I soon heard that he was having relations with various disreputable women of the town. I was so disconsolate, in my anguish I visited daily mother’s grave. There I threw myself to the ground and out of the bitterness of my heart I implored mother and prayed to her. ‘Mother,’ I cried, ‘you must not let this go on, you must not allow your good name and honor to be dragged down that way. Mother, put an end to these shameful doings. Make father so ill that he shall be unable to sin any more and besmirch your memory.’ Thus I implored and prayed. But it did not do any good. Soon I observed that father was intimate with our young servant girl and that she was trying to get hold of his money. I drove her out of the house with the aid of the police because I discovered that she was stealing money from father. O, I was like a fury and irreconcilable because the honor of my mother was at stake, and I had ceased to respect my father who had been the dearest person in the world to me! After that I had peace for a few weeks because father suffered one of his gout attacks. I prayed to God and to the virgin mother to keep father confined to his bed so that he should be able no longer to add to his sins. But father got well soon and resumed his former care-free nocturnal rounds of amusement places. Chorus girls, dancers, street women and others of that ilk gathered at our house and were lavishly entertained. Then one day I heard that father intended to marry again. He had become engaged to a 42-year-old widow. I knew at once that the woman had her eye on father’s money. _I bought a revolver and, I tell you frankly: I should have killed either the woman or my father if there had been any marriage. Perhaps I would have done away with both, for I was determined to protect mother’s memory against this insult and shame. I went to that woman’s house and gave her such a warning that the engagement was soon given up._ I told that shameless adventuress: ‘_You will never reach the altar alive; that I swear solemnly on mother’s memory!_’ I was fully determined to shoot them both.