Did I remain in that state of lethargy and inertia for long? When I opened my eyes the whiteness and blankness of the walls of my room seemed to be released by a spring. About me was a startling silence peopled with sibilant whispers. I saw women stooping, then disappearing with their arms full of linen.
My baby! My baby!
His father, exultant, held him out to me. I became fully conscious. But goodness, how ugly he was! The shrivelled face of an old woman, the profile of a vulture, a forehead covered with plushy mucosities, cheeks smeared as with the yolk of an egg, hands on the outside exactly like a bird's and on the inside creased and red. And real nails!
At the fontanelle the pulse beneath the skin throbbed terrifyingly, and the fuzz on his skull was skimpier than pin-feathers on a fledgling.
I took him in my arms, stiff and long in his swaddling-clothes. His eyes opened half way and showed a glassy violet with milky gleams.
Our child? We both in turn dropped timid solemn kisses on his downy cheeks made of a sweet smell, and I dared not say anything.
Well?... The call of the blood, the rejoicing of the flesh, the issue of love, the instinct, the lurid mother-instinct at last?