make a special note of it in a special record. You ought to do the same
with your own letters. But I will do all that myself."

"Do so, do so..." she said.

I was very much pleased with myself. Attracted by this living
interesting work, by the little table, the naive exercise books and the
charm of doing this work in my wife's society, I was afraid that my wife
would suddenly hinder me and upset everything by some sudden whim, and
so I was in haste and made an effort to attach no consequence to the
fact that her lips were quivering, and that she was looking about her
with a helpless and frightened air like a wild creature in a trap.

"I tell you what, Natalie," I said without looking at her; "let me take
all these papers and exercise books upstairs to my study. There I will
look through them and tell you what I think about it tomorrow. Have you
any more papers?" I asked, arranging the exercise books and sheets of
papers in piles.

"Take them, take them all!" said my wife, helping me to arrange them,
and big tears ran down her cheeks. "Take it all! That's all that was
left me in life.... Take the last."

"Ach! Natalie, Natalie!" I sighed reproachfully.

She opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out
of it on the table at random, poking me in the chest with her elbow
and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept
dropping upon my knees and on the floor.