down her distorted, moaning throat. Meanwhile we cursed one
another-- she through her teeth, and I in an undertone; she, I
should surmise, out of pain and shame, and I, I feel certain,
out of nervousness, mingled with a perfect agony of compassion.

"O Lord!" she gasped with blue lips flecked with foam as her
eyes (suddenly bereft of their colour in the sunlight) shed
tears born of the intolerable anguish of the maternal function,
and her body writhed and twisted as though her frame had been
severed in the middle.

"Away, you brute!" was her oft-repeated cry as with her weak
hands, hands seemingly dislocated at the wrists, she strove to
thrust me to a distance. Yet all the time I kept saying
persuasively: "You fool! Bring forth as quickly as you can!"
and, as a matter of fact, was feeling so sorry for her that
tears continued to spurt from my eyes as much as from hers, and
my very heart contracted with pity. Also, never did I cease to
feel that I ought to keep saying something; wherefore, I
repeated, and again repeated: "Now then! Bring forth as quickly
as ever you can!"

And at last my hands did indeed hold a human creature in all its
pristine beauty. Nor could even the mist of tears prevent me
from seeing that that human creature was red in the face, and
that to judge from the manner in which it kept kicking and
resisting and uttering hoarse wails (while still bound to its
mother by the ligament), it was feeling dissatisfied in advance
with the world. Yes, blue-eyed, and with a nose absurdly sunken
between a pair of scarlet, rumpled cheeks and lips which