“I did not think you felt it like that, Jenny,” said Heggen gently. “It was sad for you, of course—I quite understood that—but I thought, on the whole, it was better he was taken. If I had known you were so distressed about it, I should have come to see you.”
She did not answer, but went on in the same strain: “And he died—such a tiny, tiny little thing. It is only selfishness on my part to grudge him death before he had begun to feel and to understand. He could only look at the light and cry when he was hungry or wanted to be changed; he did not know me even—not really, anyhow. Some vague glimpses of reason had possibly begun to awaken in his little head, but, think of it, he never knew that I was his mother.
“Never a name had he, poor darling, only mother’s baby-boy, and I have nothing to remember him by, except just material things.”
She lifted her hands as if holding the child to her heart, then let them fall empty and lifeless on the table.
“I remember so distinctly my impression when I first touched him, felt his skin against mine. It was so soft, a little damp—the air had scarcely touched it yet, you see. People think a newborn child is not nice to feel, and perhaps it is so when it is not your own flesh and blood. And his eyes—they were no special colour, only dark, but I think they would have been grey-blue. A baby’s eyes are so strange—almost mysterious. And his tiny head was so pretty, when he was feeding and pressing his little nose against me. I could see the pulse beating and the thin, downy hair; he had quite a lot of it—and dark—when he was born.
“Oh, that little body of his! I can never think of anything else—I can feel it lying in my hands. He was so round and fat, and every bit of him was so pretty—my own sweet little boy!
“But he died! I was looking forward so much to all that was going to happen that it seems to me now I did not pay enough attention to things when I had him, or kissed him or looked at him enough, though I did nothing else in those weeks.
“When he was gone there was nothing left but the yearning for him. You cannot understand what I felt. My whole body ached with it. I fell ill, and the fever and the pain seemed to be my longing materialized. I missed him from my arms, between my hands, and at my cheek. Once or twice in the last week of his life he clutched my finger when I put it in his hand. Once he had somehow got hold of a little of my hair—oh, the sweet, sweet little hands....”
She lay prostrate over the table, sobbing violently, her whole form shivering.
Gunnar had got up and stood hesitating, emotion rising in his throat. Then he went to her and, bending down over her head, he touched her hair lightly with a shy, gentle kiss.