The Inferno Part 18

Anna kissed the woman on her forehead, in brave proximity to the immense cry.

When the cry was articulate, it was: "No, no! I do not want to!"

Serious, sickened faces, almost grown old in a few hours with fatigue, pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed.

I heard some one say:

"No need to help it along. Nature must be allowed to take her course.

Whatever nature does she does well."

And in surprise my lips repeated this lie, while my eyes were fixed upon the frail, innocent woman who was a prey to stupendous nature, which crushed her, rolled her in her blood, and exacted all the suffering from her that she could yield.

The midwife turned up her sleeves and put on her rubber gloves. She waved her enormous reddish-black, glistening hands like Indian clubs.

And all this turned into a nightmare in which I half believed. My head grew heavy and I was sickened by the smell of blood and carbolic acid poured out by the bottleful.

At a moment when I, feeling too harrowed, was not looking, I heard a cry different from hers, a cry that was scarcely more than the sound of a moving object, a light grating. It was the new being that had unloosened itself, as yet a mere morsel of flesh taken from her flesh-- her heart which had just been torn away from her.

This shook me to the depths of my being. I, who had witnessed everything that human beings undergo, I, at this first signal of human life, felt some paternal and fraternal chord--I do not know what-- vibrating within me.

She laughed. "How quickly it went!" she said.

The day was coming to a close. Complete silence in the room. A plain night lamp was burning, the flame scarcely flickering. The clock, like a poor soul, was ticking faintly. There was hardly a thing near the bed. It was as in a real temple.

She lay stretched out in bed, in ideal quiet, her eyes turned toward the window. Bit by bit, she saw the evening descending upon the most beautiful day in her life.

This ruined ma.s.s, this languid face shone with the glory of having created, with a sort of ecstasy which redeemed her suffering, and one saw the new world of thoughts that grew out of her experience.

She thought of the child growing up. She smiled at the joys and sorrows it would cause her. She smiled also at the brother or sister it would have some day.

And I thought of this at the same time that she did, and I saw her martyrdom more clearly than she.

This ma.s.sacre, this tragedy of flesh is so ordinary and commonplace that every woman carries the memory and imprint of it, and yet n.o.body really knows it. The doctor, who comes into contact with so much of the same sort of suffering, is not moved by it any more. The woman, who is too tender-hearted, never remembers it. Others who look on at travail have a sentimental interest, which wipes out the agony. But I who saw for the sake of seeing know, in all its horror, the agony of childbirth. I shall never forget the great laceration of life.

The night lamp was placed so that the bed was plunged in shadow. I could no longer see the mother. I no longer knew her. I believed in her.

CHAPTER XI

The woman who had been confined was moved with exquisite care into the next room, which she had occupied previously. It was larger and more comfortable.

They cleaned the room from top to bottom, and I saw Anna and Philip seated in the room again.

"Take care, Philip," Anna was saying, "you do not understand the Christian religion. You really do not know /exactly/ what it is. You speak of it," she added, with a smile, "as women speak of men, or as men when they try to explain women. Its fundamental element is love.

It is a covenant of love between human beings who instinctively detest one another. It is also a wealth of love in our hearts to which we respond naturally when we are little children. Later all our tenderness is added to it bit by bit, like treasure to treasure. It is a law of outpouring to which we give ourselves up, and it is the source of that outpouring. It is life, it is almost a work, it is almost a human being."

"But, my dear Anna, that is not the Christian religion. That is you."

In the middle of the night, I heard talking through the part.i.tion. I struggled with my sleepiness and got up.

The man was alone, in bed. A lamp was burning dimly. He was asleep and talking in his sleep.

He smiled and said "No!" three times with growing ecstasy. Then his smile at the vision he saw faded away. For a moment his face remained set, as if he were waiting, then he looked terrified, and his mouth opened. "Anna! Ah, ah!--Ah, ah!" he cried through gaping lips. At this he awoke and rolled his eyes. He sighed and quieted down. He sat up in bed, still struck and terrified by what had pa.s.sed through his mind a few seconds before.

He looked round at everything to calm himself and banish his nightmare completely. The familiar sight of the room, with the lamp, so wise and motionless, enthroned in the middle, rea.s.sured him. It was balm to this man who had just seen what does not exist, who had just smiled at phantoms and touched them, who had just been mad.

I rose the next morning, all broken up. I was restless. I had a severe headache. My eyes were bloodshot. When I looked at them in the mirror, it was as if I saw them through a veil of blood.

When I was alone, free from the visions and scenes to which I devoted my life, all kinds of worries a.s.sailed me--worry about my position, which I was risking, worry about the steps I ought to be taking and yet was not taking, worry over myself that I was so intent upon casting off all my obligations and postponing them, and repudiating my wage-earning lot, by which I was destined to be held fast in the slow wheelwork of office routine.

I was also worried by all kinds of minutiae, annoying because they kept cropping up every minute--not make any noise, not light a light when the Room was dark, hide myself, and hide myself all the time. One evening I got a fit of coughing while listening at the hole. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my pillow and buried my head in it to keep the sound from coming out of my mouth.

Everything seemed to be in a league to avenge itself upon me for I did not know what. I felt as though I should not be able to hold out much longer. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to keep on looking as long as my health and my courage lasted. It might be bad for me, but it was my duty.

The man was sinking. Death was evidently in the house.

It was quite late in the evening. They were sitting at the table opposite each other.

I knew their marriage had taken place that afternoon, and that its purpose had been only to solemnise their approaching farewell. Some white blossoms, lilies and azaleas, were strewn on the table, the mantelpiece, and one armchair. He was fading away like those cut flowers.

"We are married," he said. "You are my wife. You are my wife, Anna!"

It was for the sweetness of saying, "You are my wife," that he had so longed. Nothing more. But he felt so poor, with his few days of life, that it was complete happiness to him.

He looked at her, and she lifted her eyes to him--to him who adored her sisterly tenderness--she who had become devoted to his adoration. What infinite emotion lay hidden in these two silences, which faced each other in a kind of embrace; in the double silence of these two human beings, who, I had observed, never touched each other, not even with the tips of their fingers.

The girl lifted her head, and said, in an unsteady voice:

"It is late. I am going to sleep."

She got up. The lamp, which she set on the mantelpiece, lit up the room.

She trembled. She seemed to be in a dream and not to know how to yield to the dream. Then she raised her arm and took the pins out of her hair. It fell down her back and looked, in the night, as if it were lit by the setting sun.

The man made a sudden movement and looked at her in surprise. Not a word.

She removed a gold brooch from the top of her blouse, and a bit of her bosom appeared.