And everything seemed to me strange and queer--so unnatural--the table and the food upon it, and everything outside of me.
It all seemed to me transparent and light, existing only temporarily.
"Why don't you eat ?" asked my wife.
I smiled: "Bread--it is so strange." She glanced at the bread, at the stale, dry crust of bread, and for some reason her face became sad.

Still continuing to look at it, she silently adjusted her apron with her hands and her head turned slightly, very slightly, in the direction where the children were sleeping.
"Do you feel sorry for them ?" I asked.
She shook her head without removing her eyes from the bread.
"No, but I was thinking of what happened in our life before." How incomprehensible! As one who awakens from a long sleep, she surveyed the room with her eyes and all seemed to her so incomprehensible.

Was this the place where we had lived?
"You were my wife." "And there are our children." "Here, beyond the wall, your father died." "Yes.

He died.

He died without awakening." The smallest child, frightened at something in her sleep, began to cry.
And this simple childish cry, apparently demanding something, sounded so strange amid these phantom walls, while there, below, people were building barricades.
She cried and demanded--caresses, certain queer words and promises to soothe her.