White Hands

For the second time in a year this lady with the white hands is brought to the west room second floor of a famous sanatorium.
 Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian poets before the local literary club.
 Yesterday she washed her hands forty seven times during her waking hours and in her sleep moaned restlessly attempting to clean imaginary soiled spots off her hands.
 Now the head physician touches his chin with a crooked forefinger.
White Hands

by Carl Sandburg, 1920
