Traktatus had in fact become a habit of his that was guaranteed to drive a woman up the wall, his wife had hated it from the first, so inevitably when he started on Wittgenstein she would send him down cellar for a glassful of cider; and Fro is supposed to have said to Konrad that this slavish obedience of his, Konrad’s, to his wife’s commands, an obedience Fro was forced to describe as doglike, nevertheless did not really exclude its opposite, as reflected in Konrad’s general conduct, his character, the fact that he always prevailed in any difference he had with his wife, to which Konrad is supposed to have replied that of course he knew quite well why he permitted himself to be sent to the cellar every five minutes to fetch cider, etc., why he let himself be made a fool of by his wife, from time to time, Konrad said to Fro, because there is nothing more ridiculous than a man being sent again and again to the cellar for some cider and who actually goes, submissively, cider jug in hand, a man who would have to feel his way down the dark cellar stairs with an empty cider jug in one hand, then again, in the pitchdark of the lime works cellar, the brimful cider jug in his hands, blindly feeling his way up those stairs again and again, making a grotesque appearance besides, because in order to avoid catching cold in those icy cellars he was wrapped in a stinking old horse blanket or the like; all his wife was aiming at was to make him ridiculous, it was the one idea left in her head, to make a fool of him, to cut him down to size because he still considered himself a man of science, and in fact he did, he saw himself, to be quite candid, Konrad is supposed to have told Fro, as a scientific philosopher. Basically, Konrad is supposed to have said to Fro, my wife has been able to make a fool of me, make me her house buffoon, as it were, but only because for a long time now I have let her do it, without letting her realize the part I actually play; by deliberately making her think that I am a fool and that she prevails against me, I keep the upper hand, he said. A quite transparent strategy if you saw it, too intricate to be fully explainable if not. He knew exactly why he let his wife get away with sending him on those fool’s errands to the cellar every minute, with letting him make himself ridiculous by throwing on whatever wrap was handy (horse blankets, etc.), letting her victimize him with her practical joke of nonchalantly knitting the same mitten for him year after year, and why he submitted without a murmur to trying on incessantly if not the identical mitten, then nevertheless the same mitten, again and again. Despite all that, he said to Fro, regardless of all of her sadistic tricks on him, all her endless nonsense, women were so inventive in resorting to ridiculous nonsense, absurdities, etc., he was all right, he was making headway with the Urbanchich method, the book was firmly established in his head, etc., and even though he had not been able to write any of it down to this day, it was far from a hopeless case, because, as he suddenly said to Fro, the actual writing down of an important intellectual undertaking can hardly ever be postponed too long! and, he quickly added: Admittedly, a postponement can also be ruinous to such an undertaking as this book of mine, yet in almost every case this kind of intellectual task stands to gain by a so-called conscious or unconscious postponement. Suddenly she would say: How much cider do we actually have in the cellar? and send him down to test the casks for their exact content by rapping his knuckles on them, or else she would ask: Do we have any garlic in the house? or: What time is it on your bedroom clock? so that he had to get up and go downstairs to his room to look at his wall clock there and then climb back upstairs to tell her the time on his wall clock, she could never trust either of their clocks, hers or his, only both of them together, Konrad is supposed to have told Fro, but, he added, there is no depending on both of those clocks either, ultimately (according to Mrs. Konrad). Is it dark outside? she would ask over and over, or: Is it snowing outside? always just when he had begun to read her the Kropotkin. Not that he always took orders with such alacrity, Konrad said to Fro, that would be unwise, so he very often pretended not to hear what she was asking. When she said: Is it snowing outside? meaning of course: get up immediately and look out the window and tell me whether it is snowing or not, he would start reading the Kropotkin with the utmost coolness as though he had heard nothing. She might often ask six or seven times whether it is snowing outside, Konrad said to Fro, but I react not at all, I merely read and go on reading until she gives up and stops asking. Most of the time he obeyed her so-called orders only when there might be an advantage in it for him, or when he really had nothing better to do, because actually an order from her when he was, for instance, reading Kropotkin to her or reporting on his progress with the book or the like, did not necessarily annoy him every time, unfortunately his own concentration on the Kropotkin or the book or some other intellectual concern was not always wholehearted, quite the contrary, occasionally it was a relief to be sent down cellar for cider, to go to the kitchen, to go to his room, whatever. Even during his morning or evening piano playing, literally