"All right, I will take it," agreed my brother submissively. "Yes, you are lucky. Half of the town is in mourning. While legs--that is really...." "Of course I am not a postman." My brother stopped suddenly and asked,-- "But why does your head shake?" "That's nothing. The doctor said it will pass." "And your hands too?" "Yes, yes. And my hands too. It will all pass. Wheel me on, please, I am tired of remaining still." They upset me, those discontented people, but my gladness returned to me when they began making my bed; a real bed, a handsome bed, that I had bought just before our wedding four years ago. They spread a clean sheet, then they shook the pillows and turned down the blanket, while I watched the solemn proceedings, my eyes full of tears with laughing. "And now undress me and put me to bed," said I to my wife. "How good it is!" "This minute, dear." "Quicker!" "This minute, dear." "Why; what are you doing?" "This minute, dear." She was standing behind my back, near the toilette table, and I vainly tried to turn my head so as to see her. And suddenly she gave a cry, such a cry as one hears only at the war,-- "What does it all mean?" She rushed towards me, put her arms round me, and fell down, hiding her head near the stumps of my cut-off legs, from which she turned away with horror, and again pressed herself against them, kissing them, and crying,-- "What have you become? Why, you are only thirty years old. You were young and handsome. What does it all mean? How cruel men are. What is it for? For whom is it necessary? You, my gentle, poor darling, darling...." At her cry they all ran up--my mother, sister, nurse--and they all began crying and saying something or other, and fell at my feet wailing. While on the threshold stood my brother, pale, terribly pale, with a trembling jaw, and cried out in a high-pitched voice,-- "I shall go mad with you all. I shall go mad!" While my mother grovelled at my chair and had not the strength to cry, but only gasped, beating her head against the wheels. And there stood the clean bed with the well-shaken pillows and turned-down blanket, the same bed that I bought just before our wedding four years ago.... FRAGMENT IX ... I was sitting in a warm bath, while my brother was pacing up and down the small room in a troubled manner, sitting down, getting up again, catching hold of the soap and towel, bringing them close up to his short-sighted eyes and again putting them back in their places. At last he stood up with his face to the wall and picking at the plaster with his finger, continued hotly.