At that moment the bell tinkled, and the maid came running up. She carried a jug of hot water and flannels in her hand, and pushing past him she declared that she hadn't a moment. The door of the bedroom was ajar; a fire burned, candles flared on the mantelpiece, a basin stood on the floor, and at times nothing was heard but a long moan, mingling with the murmuring voices of the doctor and nurse.
The room seemed like a sanctuary in which some mysterious rite was being performed. But suddenly the silence was broken by shrieks so passionate and acute that all the earlier ones were only remembered as feeble lamentations.
Dick raised his big face from his hands, the movement threw back the mass of frizzly hair, and in the intensity of this emotion he looked like a lion.
'Was this life,' he asked himself, 'or death? And by whose order was a human creature tortured thus cruelly?' But the idea of God did not arrest his attention, and his thoughts fixing themselves on the child, he asked himself, what was this new life to him?
'Oh, I never will again! Oh, how I hate him—I could kill him! I'll never love him, never no more.'
The cry touched the fat mummer through all the years of gross sensuality, through the indigestion of his big dinner, and, struck by the sense of her words, he shuddered, remembering that it was he who was the cause of this outrageous suffering and not the innocent child. Was it possible, he asked himself, that she would never love him again? He didn't know. Was it possible that he was culpable? Strange notions respecting the origin, the scheme, the design of the universe, flashed in dim chiaro-oscuro through his thoughts, and for a full hour Dick pondered, philosopher-like, on the remote causes and the distant finalities of men and things.
An hour full of moans and cries of suffering, then a great silence came, and the whole house seemed to sigh with a sense of relief.
'The baby must be born,' he said; and immediately after a little thin cry was heard, and in his heart it was prolonged like a note of gladness, and his thoughts became paternal.
He wondered if it were a girl or a boy; he fancied he'd like a girl best. If she were pretty, and had a bit of a voice, he'd be able to push her to the front, whereas with a boy it would be more difficult. Relinquishing his dreams at this point, Dick listened to the silence. He did not dare to knock at the door, but the murmur of satisfied voices assured him that all was right. Still it was very odd that they did not come out and announce the result to him. Did he count for nobody? Did they fancy that it was nothing to him if his wife and child were dead or alive? The idea of being thus completely unconsidered in an affair of such deep concern irritated him, and he walked towards the sofa to brood over his wrongs. Should he, or should he not, knock at the door? At last he decided that he should, and, after a timid rap, tried the handle. He was immediately confronted by the nurse.
'It's all right, sir; you shall come in in a moment when the baby is washed.'