The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster

Canada; of the desertion by Auster of the wife and little children and how he had said that he was ‘going to make way with himself’ [sic] and how he had told the wife that he was taking fifty dollars so that when he was dead it might be found on him and used to give him a decent burial…. She said that during their residence in Canada they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Ball….
    “A little break in the story which could not be furnished by Mrs. Grossman, was furnished by former Chief Constable Archie Moore and Abraham Low, both of Peterboro county, Canada. These men told of the departure of Auster from Peterboro and the grief of his wife. Auster, they said, left Peterboro July 14, 1909, and the following night Moore found Mrs. Auster in a room of their shabby home suffering from the effects of gas. She and the children lay on a mattress on the floor while the gas was flowing from four open jets. Moore told of the further fact that he had found a vial of carbolic acid in the room and that traces of the acid had been found on the lips of Mrs. Auster. She was taken to a hospital, the witness declared, and was ill for many days. Both of these men declared that in their opinion there was no doubt but that Mrs. Auster showed signs of insanity at the time she attempted her life in Canada.”
    Further witnesses included the two oldest children, each of whom chronicled the family’s domestic troubles. Much was said about Fanny, and also the frequent squabbles at home. “Hesaid that Auster had a habit of throwing dishes and glass ware and that at one time his mother’s arm had been so badly cut that it was necessary to call a physician to attend her. He declared that his father used profane and indecent language toward his mother at these times….”
    Another witness from Chicago testified that she had frequently seen my grandmother beat her head against the wall in fits of mental anguish. A police officer from Kenosha told how at “one time he had seen Mrs. Auster running wildly down a street. He stated that her hair was ‘more or less’ dishevelled and added that she acted much like a woman who had lost her mind.” A doctor was also called in, and he contended that she had been suffering from “acute mania.”
    My grandmother’s testimony lasted three hours. “Between stifled sobs and recourse to tears, she told the story of her life with Auster up to the time of the ‘accident’…. Mrs. Auster stood the ordeal of cross questioning very well, and her story was told over three times in almost the same way.”
    In his summation “Attorney Baker made a strong emotional plea for the release of Mrs. Auster. In a speech lasting nearly an hour and a half he retold in an eloquent manner the story of Mrs. Auster…. Several times Mrs. Auster was moved to tears by the statements of her attorney and women in the audience were sobbing several times as the attorney painted the picture of the struggling immigrant woman seeking to maintain their home.”
    The judge gave the jury the option of only two verdicts: guilty or innocent of murder. It took them less than two hours to make their decision. As the bulletin of April 12th put it: “At four thirty o’clock this afternoon the jury in the trial of Mrs. Anna Auster returned a verdict finding the defendant not guilty.”
    April 14th. “‘I am happier now than I have been for seventeen years,’ said Mrs. Auster Saturday afternoon as she shook hands with each of the jurors following the return of the verdict. ‘As long as Harry lived,’ she said to one of them, ‘I was worried. I never knew real happiness. Now I regret that he had to die by my hand. I am as happy now as I ever expect to be….’
    “As Mrs. Auster left the court room she was attended by her daughter … and the two younger children, who had waited patiently in the courtroom for the return of the verdict which freed their mother….
    “At the county jail Sam Auster… while he cannot understand it all,