Green stains were also shining on the ground, and what could this liquid be except blood, and what was there astonishing in its appearing green, since greenery gave me the sense of red? This liquid exhaled a pungent smell, which would have driven me far away, if I had been capable of budging, and yet, the smell was not that which I had been accustomed to associate with blood. I had _never_ smelt it, any more than those other perfumes, or any more than my ears remembered having heard sounds like these. It was strange that the aberration of my senses had not been dissipated along with the vapors of the ether. I endeavored to fight against this feeling of numbness. No use! They had stretched me out on a litter of straw, of _purple_ straw. The operators kept their backs turned to me, except Johann. Every now and again, Lerne flung into the basin cotton-wool stained with green blood.... Johann was the first to perceive my awaking, and he told the Professor of it. There was then a movement of general curiosity with regard to me, which, breaking up the group, allowed me to see an absolutely naked man bound to the table, with his hands under it--motionless and white, the color of wax, like a corpse, the blackness of his mustache making the paleness still paler, and his head, enveloped in bandages bedabbled with spurts of green. His breast rose rhythmically. He was breathing in the air with all his lungs, his nostrils quivering with each inhalation. This man--it took me some time to accept it--_was myself_. When I was certain that no mirror was giving me back my own image, which was an easy matter to settle, it came into my mind that Lerne had doubled my being, and that now I was two.... Or else, was I not dreaming? No, assuredly not, but up to now the adventure had not got beyond the bizarre stage. I was neither dead nor mad, and the evidence of this cheered me mightily. (Protest as one may against the conviction which I felt of possessing all my reason, the future was to confirm this rash judgment.) The man on the operating-table shook his head. Wilhelm had unfastened him, and I beheld my other self awaking to a faint-like condition. Opening eyes like those of a blind man, he waggled his head about with an idiotic air, stroked the edges of the table and sat up. He did not look at all well. I could not accept the idea that my double should behave so like a brute beast. They laid the patient in the little truckle-bed. He allowed himself to be patted; but soon he was convulsed with painful vomiting proving beyond doubt the total absence of communication between him and me, since I suffered in no wise from his troubles, except mentally, and through the effect of a feeling of compassion, which was very natural, towards a gentleman who was so very like myself. Like! Was that only a replica of my body, or was it really my body?