Let me alone, Titus! I don't want anything to do with
you--I'm not drunk. And if I am--no--. The cursed wine at the Sword--at
that time--Go away--away!--If you don't go, Vetturi, you shall--There,
there you lie--"

He bent over to pick up a stone, and fell down.

Getting up again, he said to himself, as he would to an unruly horse:
"Keep quiet, quiet! So, so!" And then he cried angrily: "If I only had
a horse! At home there are twelve, fourteen horses and one colt--Who's
coming behind me? Who is it? If you have any courage, come on! 'Tisn't
fair to hit from behind. Come in front of me! Come, and I'll fight with
you!"

From the steep hillside a stone rolled into the road, loosened by who
knows what animal's flying foot? Landolin clenched both hands in his
hair, that rose on end with fright, and cried:

"Are you throwing stones? That's it, self-defense! self-defense! Just
wait!"

He stopped and said, "Don't drive yourself crazy, or they'll put you in
an asylum."

A railroad train rushed through the valley. The locomotive's red lights
appeared like the flaming eyes of a snorting monster. Landolin stared
at it, and in doing so he became calmer, for ghosts cannot haunt a
locomotive's track. The sweat of fear ran down his face, and with
loudly beating heart he hastened up the road. At length he breathed
more freely; he took off his hat; a refreshing breeze blew over the
plateau: he saw his house, and said:

"The light is still burning; they are waiting for me; supper is on the
table. Control yourself; you are Landolin of Reutershoefen. You have a
wife called Johanna, a daughter called Thoma, and a son called Peter. I
care nothing for the hammering in my temples. I am not drunk--tipsy:
three times three are nine--and one more is ten. You lie when you say I
am drunk. I can walk straight. So, there is the well. Oh well, you are
happy; you can stay at home, and yet be full all the time. Ha! ha!
Hush! don't try to make jokes. Hush!"

Again he stood at the well, and cooled his hands and face, then went
into the yard, and without stopping to speak to the dog, passed up the
steps and into the living-room, where he found the doctor sitting at
the table, writing.

"What is it? There's nothing the matter?"

"Your wife is sick."

"It is not serious?"

"I don't know yet. At any rate you must keep quiet. You may go in; but
don't talk much, and come right away again."

The walls, the tables, the chairs, seemed to reel; but