"Oh, I don't know, I don't know!... Wait another day, please, please...."
We waited three whole days, and then Leglise gave in. "Well, do what you must. Do what you like."
On the morning of the operation, he asked to be carried down to the ward by the steps into the park. I went with him, and I saw him looking at all things round him, as if taking them to witness.
If only, only it is not too late!
Again he was laid on the table. Again we cut through flesh and bones. The second leg was amputated at the thigh.
I took him in my arms to lay him on his bed, and he was so light, so light....
This time when he woke he asked no question. But I saw his hands groping to feel where his body ended.
A few days have passed since the operation. We have done all it was humanly possible to do, and Leglise comes back to life with a kind of bewilderment.
"I thought I should have died," he said to me this morning, while I was encouraging him to eat.
He added: