But it didn’t last. A month later, perhaps less, Father had grown tired and annoyed with this kind of purposeless life. He had no patience to look at flowers; he couldn’t be bothered to watch his birds; and it seemed as though he and Ah-bing had exhausted all topics of conversation. His temperament changed: he became gruff and unpleasant to be around. Without provocation, he’d let loose a litany of complaints – hurling insults at this, blaming that – it was as if everything in our house exhausted him, tormented him, made him uncomfortable. Now, whatever we said or whatever we did seemed to displease him. Even when we tried to get close to him, he’d become upset and wave his hands, shouting at us to go away. In such a short period of time, life had become a burden to him, something unbearable. He would spend the whole day shut up in his room, reduced to a shadow of his former self as he paced up and down. Needless to say, it made all of us feel terribly worried. I should say that Father never used to be so temperamental, so unpredictable and difficult to please. He never used to make unreasonable demands on anyone, but now he seemed to be a complete stranger. He was pernickety, harsh, peremptory, violent and unreasonable. One day – I don’t know whether someone had said something to him – he suddenly went wild. He went out onto the balcony and tore open the bird cages, releasing them into the air, and then he set about smashing all the flowerpots, one after another. A month before this, he seemed to like his birds and his flowers very much, but now he had turned against them. Father seemed to get bored with his toys like a child, but the problem is that he wasn’t a child. Every day he’d get up incredibly early, but he wouldn’t go anywhere, he wouldn’t do anything, he wouldn’t open his mouth. From morning till night, he’d mope about looking discouraged and dejected. He’d sigh, he’d get angry, he’d stare blankly at nothing. He gave the impression of a man at the end of his tether.