Extraits

It was a breech birth; and so, right up to the very last moment of innocent ignorance, I remained aware of the midwife's boisterous, bawdy encouragement.

"Just the head now, my dear… almost there… your son is almost born. But now we must take great care. Do exactly what I say—do you hear me, madame?—exactly!"

I nodded and drew a panting breath, clinging to the towel that had been hung on the wooden bedstead behind my head. The candlelight threw huge shadows up to the ceiling, strange, leering shapes that were oddly threatening to me in the mindless delirium of pain. In that last, lonely moment of thrusting anguish it seemed to me that there was no one left alive in the world but me; that I would be shut up for all eternity in this bleak prison of pain.

There was a great bursting, tearing sensation and then peace… and silence; the breathless hush of stunned disbelief. I opened my eyes to see the midwife's face—rosy with exertion only moments before—slowly draining of color; and my housemaid,

Simonette, backing away from the bed, with one hand pressed against her mouth.

I remember thinking: It must be dead. But sensing even in that confused split second before I knew the truth that it was worse than that… much worse.