Fritz Leiber

The Black Ewe by Fritz Leiber - She brought death to all those who walked behind her...

Very well, I’ll tell you why I broke off my engagement to Lavinia Simes–though I'm not the sort of person who likes to go around broadcasting the facts of his private life. There's altogether too much broadcasting going on these days, by wave, newsprint and heaven knows what subtler avenue of approach to the human mind.

I could sum it all up in the one word horror. But that doesn't mean much by itself. Besides it would let you explain it away as a neurotic delusion, aftermath of the near nervous breakdown I had in 1946, when I quit my desk job with OSS. Though why anyone shouldn't have a nervous breakdown these days, with the whole world rushing hypnotized into the mouth of doom, is more than I can see.

At any rate "ridiculous neurotic delusion" is the explanation favored by most of the friends of the Simes–one syllable, you know, rhymes with limes. They de­light in telling eaeh other how without any word of warning I walked away from Lavinia in the midst of a sight­seeing tour of Chicago and refused ever to see her again. Which is completely accurate lncidently.

They all think I behaved outrageously. All of them, that is, except Mrs. Grot­ius.