I said: "Yet that’s a bad joke."
The gentleman said: "Not at all. If you want to hang yourself, first you’ve got to get up on the window sill. And who will open the gas jet for you if you want to poison yourself? You could only buy a revolver secretly through a servant. But suppose the shot misses? To drown yourself you’ve got to take an automobile and have yourself carried down to the river on a stretcher by two attendants who have to haul you to the far bank."
I said: "That’s for me to worry about."
The gentleman said: "You’re wrong, I’ve been thinking since you’ve been siting here how one might get rid of you. Do you think that a man without legs makes a sympathetic picture? Has the right to live? On the contrary, you create a terrible disturbance for the aesthetic feelings of your fellow human beings."
I said: "I am a full professor of ethics and aesthetics at the university. May I introduce myself?"
The gentleman said: "How are you going to do that? Clearly you cannot imagine how impossible you are, in your condition."
I looked sadly at my stumps.
II
Soon the lady opposite me said:
"To have no legs must be a very odd feeling."