One afternoon his wife appears, a tousled little thing with anxious, quick eyes like a bird, in a sort of black, crinkly mantilla with ribbons; heaven knows where she inherited the thing. She murmurs something softly and stands shyly in the doorway. It terrifies her that there are six of us men present. "Well, Marja," says Lewandowski, and gulps dangerously with his Adam's apple, "you can come in all right, they won't hurt you." She goes the round and proffers each of us her hand. Then she produces the child, which in the interval has done something in its napkin. From a large handbag embroidered with pearls she takes out a clean one and makes the child fresh and presentable. This dispels her first embarrassment, and the two begin to talk. Lewandowski is very fidgety, every now and then he squints across at us most unhappily with his round goggle eyes. The time is favourable, the doctor's visit is over, at the most there couldn't be more than one sister left in the ward. So one of us goes out to prospect. He comes back and nods. "Not a soul to be seen. Now's your chance, Johann, set to." The two speak together in an undertone. The woman turns a little red and looks embarrassed. We grin good-naturedly and make pooh-poohing gestures, what does it matter! The devil take all the conventions, they were made for other times; here lies the carpenter Johann Lewandowski, a soldier shot to a cripple, and there is his wife; who knows when he will see her again? He wants to have her, and he should have her, good. Two men stand at the door to forestall the sisters and keep them occupied if they chance to come along. They agree to stand guard for a quarter of an hour or thereabouts. Lewandowski can only lie on his side, so one of us props a couple of pillows against his back. Albert gets the child to hold, we all turn round a bit, the black mantilla disappears under the bed-clothes, we make a great clatter and play skat noisily. All goes well. I hold a club solo with four jacks which nearly goes the round. In the process we almost forget Lewandowski. After a while the child begins to squall, although Albert, in desperation, rocks it to and fro. Then there is a bit of creaking and rustling, and as we look up casually we see that the child has the bottle in its mouth, and is back again with its mother. The business is over. We now feel ourselves like one big family, the woman is rather quieter, and Lewandowski lies there sweating and beaming. He unpacks the embroidered handbag, and some good sausages come to light; Lewandowski takes up the knife with a flourish and saws the meat into slices. With a handsome gesture he waves toward us--and the little woman goes from one to the other and smiles at us and hands round the sausage; she now looks quite handsome. We call her Mother, she is pleased and shakes up our pillows for us. * *