I knew when the surgeon and his assistants arrived, for I heard his voice on the stair. It was clear and unconcerned, the one strong and confident thing among all these portentous preparations. Heavy bags were carried up from the hall to be deposited on the floor above. I could hear the surgeon’s firm foot overhead and noticed a further moving of tables. There came now a clatter of steel in metal dishes which made me shiver.
I looked at the clock on my table. It was three minutes to nine.
What of the poor soul who was waiting? She also would be looking at the clock. Three minutes more and she would be led in her nightdress into this chamber of horrors. The very idea paralysed one. If I were in her place I should scream until I roused the street. I should struggle with every fibre of my body. I should cling to the door until my arms were pulled out of their sockets. A barrel-organ in the road was playing a trivial waltz, a boy was going by whistling, the world was cheerfully indifferent, while the loneliness of the stricken woman was horrible beyond words.
As the church clock struck nine I knew that the patient was entering the room. I fancied I could hear the shuffle of her slippers and the closing of the door—the last hope of escape—behind her. A chair was moved into position. She was stepping on to the table.
Then came an absolute silence. I knew they were chloroforming her. I fancied that the vapour of that sickly drug was oozing through the ceiling into my room. I was suffocated. I gasped until I thought my chest would burst. The silence was awful. I dared not scream. I would have rung my bell but the thought of the noise it would make held me back.
I lay glaring at the ceiling, my forehead covered with drops of cold sweat. I wrung my fingers together lest all sensation should go out of them.
In a while there came three awful moans from the room above and then once more the moving, of feet was to be heard, whereby I felt that the operation had begun. I could picture the knife, the great cut, the cold callousness of it all. For what seemed to me to be interminable hours I gazed at the ceiling. How long was this murdering to go on! How could the poor moaning soul be tortured all this while and endure another minute!
Suddenly there was a great commotion in the room above. The table was dragged round rapidly. There were footsteps everywhere. Was the operation over? No. Something had gone wrong. A man dashed downstairs calling for a cab. In a moment I could hear the wheels tear along the street and then return. He had gone to fetch something and rushed upstairs with it.
This made me wonder for a moment what had happened to the husband and daughter who were waiting in a room off the hall. Had they died of the suspense? Why did they not burst into the room and drag her away while there was yet time? The lower part of the house was practically empty and I was conscious that two or three times the trembling couple had crept up the stairs to the level of my room to listen. I could hear the daughter say, “What shall we do! What shall we do!” And then the two would stumble down the stairs again to the empty room.
I still glared at the ceiling like one in a trance. I had forgotten about myself, although there was such a sinking at my heart that I could only breathe in gasps. The loathsome bustle in the room above continued.