“Having given reins to my rage, I revelled in it and wished to do something still more unusual to show the extreme degree of my anger. I felt a terrible desire to beat her, to kill her, but knew that this would not do, and so to give vent to my fury I seized a paperweight from my table, again shouting ‘Go!’ and hurled it to the floor near her. I aimed it very exactly past her. Then she left the room, but stopped at the doorway, and immediately, while she still saw it (I did it so that she might see), I began snatching things from the table⁠—candlesticks and inkstand⁠—and hurling them on the floor still shouting ‘Go! Get out! I don’t answer for myself!’ She went away⁠—and I immediately stopped.

“An hour later the nurse came to tell me that my wife was in hysterics. I went to her; she sobbed, laughed, could not speak, and her whole body was convulsed. She was not pretending, but was really ill.

“Towards morning she grew quiet, and we made peace under the influence of the feeling we called love.