"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....