She saw the bright things in the doctor's bag. Then long claws of steel.
She wanted to scream. Her tongue and lips were wool. She knew that far away, out of the darkness which did not belong to her, something warm and moist slipped. The child emerged from the blackness in which she was still caught.
The child passed from the torture which went on without it.
"Mrs. Farley, it's over. You can rest." The nurse leaned close. Winnie felt the nurse's breath, dry and hot as a sirocco, blown on her cold ear across the dark.
What did it matter to the rocking dark that the child was born? Her wrists floated. Her heart strained and gathered itself as if for its most profound joy.
But the great joy to which she opened, slowly transfigured itself. An ugly and living shudder ran through her. The joy refused her. At the instant in which she knew it entirely, she ceased to be. Her heart stopped beating. She fell back, noiseless.
The nurse, with the child in her lap, sat by a porcelain basin cleansing the baby with a big sponge.
Dr. Beach called her and she laid the baby in the new crib while she went quickly for Mrs. Farley.
When the nurse had returned and Dr. Beach was working, attempting to revive Winnie, Laurence came into the room.