"You expected it, Herr Professor?"
"I feared it since this morning."
"And why ... why?"
The doctor answered softly and gently: "A very exceptional case, as I told you before."
"You told me...?"
"Yes, I tried to explain to you that this possibility ... it was strangled, you see, by the umbilical cord. Scarcely one or two per cent. of births end like that." He was silent.
George gazed at the child. Quite right, the Professor had prepared him in advance only he had not taken it seriously. Frau Rosner was standing by him with helpless eyes. George held out his hand to her and they looked at each other like persons whom the sore stress of circumstances has made companions in misfortune. Then Frau Rosner sank down on a chair by the wall.
The Professor said to George: "I will now go and just have a look at the mother."
"Mother!" repeated George, and gazed at him.
The doctor looked away.