Eric Eng’s Reviews > The Stranger > Status Update

He had shown off his money. During the night his mother and his sister had beaten him to death with a hammer in order to rob him and had thrown his body in the river. The next morning the wife had come to the hotel and, without knowing it, gave away the traveler’s identity. The mother hanged herself. The sister threw herself down a well. On the one hand it wasn’t very likely. On the other it was perfectly natural

A man had left a Czech village to seek his fortune. Twenty five years later, and now rich, he had returned with a wife and child. His mother running a hotel with his sister in the village where he’d been born. In order to surprise them, he had left his wife and child at another hotel and gone to see his mother, who didn’t recognize him when he walked in. As a joke he’d had the idea of taking a room.

I was almost surprised that I had ever enjoyed anything other than those rare moments when the judge would lead me to the door of his office, slap me on the shoulder, and say to me cordially, “That’s all for today, Monsieur Antichrist.” I would then be handed back over to the police.