But in coming into the world it seems I turned and twisted in such a manner that the umbilical cord got round my neck, and I looked purple and half-strangled.
The woman who was with my mother uttered a cry, and my mother took it up.
"Oh, my God!" she murmured,—"it is black, is it not?"
The woman dared not answer her: there is so very little difference of colour between dark purple and black that it was not worth while to contradict.
The next moment I cried, as that creature destined to sorrow, whom we call man, generally does as he comes into the world.
The cord pressed round my neck so that I could only utter a kind of growl, similar in its nature to the noise that was always ringing in my mother's ears.
"Berlick! Berlick!" my mother cried out in despair.
Happily the doctor hastened to reassure her: he set my neck free, my face took its natural colour, and my cries were the wailings of an infant, and not the growls of a demon.
But I was none the less baptized with the name of Berlick, and it stuck to me ever after.