ions, but it is not my fault that I believe that
and nothing else; I cannot overcome in myself this belief.

But that is not the point. I only ask people to be indulgent to my
weakness, and to realize that to tear from the lecture-theatre and his
pupils a man who is more interested in the history of the development
of the bone medulla than in the final object of creation would be
equivalent to taking him and nailing him up in his coffin without
waiting for him to be dead.

Sleeplessness and the consequent strain of combating increasing weakness
leads to something strange in me. In the middle of my lecture tears
suddenly rise in my throat, my eyes begin to smart, and I feel a
passionate, hysterical desire to stretch out my hands before me and
break into loud lamentation. I want to cry out in a loud voice that I,
a famous man, have been sentenced by fate to the death penalty, that
within some six months another man will be in control here in the
lecture-theatre. I want to shriek that I am poisoned; new ideas such as
I have not known before have poisoned the last days of my life, and are
still stinging my brain like mosquitoes. And at that moment my position
seems to me so awful that I want all my listeners to be horrified, to
leap up from their seats and to rush in panic terror, with desperate
screams, to the exit.

It is not easy to get through such moments.

II

After my lecture I sit at home and work. I read journals and monographs,
or prepare my next lecture; sometimes I write something. I work with
interruptions, as I have from time to time to see visitors.

There is a ring at the bell. It is a colleague come to discuss some
business matter with me. He comes in to me with his hat and his stick,
and, holding out both these objects to me, says:

"Only for a minute! Only for a minute! Sit down, _collega_! Only a
couple of words."

To begin with, we both try to show each other that we are
extraordinarily polite and highly delighted to see each other. I make
him sit down in an easy-chair, and he makes me sit down; as we do so, we
cautiously pat each other on the back, touch each other's buttons, and
it looks as though we were feeling each other and afraid of scorching
our fingers. Both of us laugh, though we say nothing amusing. When we
are seated we bow our heads towards each other and begin talking
in subdued voices. However affectionately disposed we may be to one
another, we cannot help adorning our conversa