He turned to Corydon. “These pains that you feel,” he said, “are from the compressing of the womb. Don’t let them frighten you—everything is just as it should be. You will find that you can help at each pang by holding your breath; just as soon as you cry out, it releases the diaphragm, and the pressure stops, and the pain passes. You must bear each one just as long as you can. I don’t want you to faint, of course—but the longer the pressure lasts, the sooner it will all be over.”
The girl was staring at him with her wild eyes—she looked like a hunted creature in a trap. It sounded all so very simple—but the horror of it drove Thyrsis mad. Ah, God, it was monstrous—it was superhuman—it was a thing beyond all thinking! It wrung all his soul, it shook him as the tempest shakes a leaf—the sight of this awful agony.
It was like the sudden closing of a battle; the shock of squadrons, the locking of warriors in a grip of death. There was no longer time for words now, no longer time for a glance about him; the spasms came, one after another, relentless, unceasing, inevitable—each trooping upon the heels of the last; they were uncounted—uncountable—piling upon one another like waves upon the sea, like the gusts of a raging storm. And this girl, this child, that he had watched over so hungrily, that was so tender and so sensitive—it was like wild horses tearing her apart! The agony would flame up in her, he would see her body turn rigid, her face flush scarlet, her teeth become set and her gums fleshed. The muscles would stand out in her cheeks, the perspiration start upon her forehead. She would grip Thyrsis’ hand until all the might of both his arms was not enough to match her.
On the other side of the bed knelt the young nurse, wrestling with the other hand; and Thyrsis could see her face flush too, each time—until at last a cry seem to tear its way from the girl’s throat, and would sink back, faint and white.
It was a new aspect of life to Thyrsis, a new revelation of being; it was pain such as he had never dreamed it was horror the like of which was unknown in his philosophy. All the suffering of the night was nothing to a minute of this; it came upon her with the rush of a flood of waters—it seized her—instant, insistent, relentless as the sweep of the planets. Thyrsis had been all unprepared for it; he cried out for time to think—to realize it. But there was no time to think or to realize it. The thing was here—now! It glared into his eyes like a fiend of hell; it was fiery, sharp as steel—and it had to be seized with the naked hands!
The pangs came, each one worse than the last. They built themselves up in his soul in a symphony of terror; they lifted him out of himself, they swept him away beyond all control, like a leaf in the autumn wind. He had never known such a sensation before—his soul seemed whirled into pieces. His feeling was apart from his action; he could not control his thoughts; he was going mad! He loved her so—she was so beautiful; and to see her thus, in the grip of horror!
He tried to get hold of himself again—he talked to himself, pinning his attention on the task of his hands. Perhaps maybe it was his fancy—it did not really hurt her so! Maybe—
He spoke to her, calling to her, in between the crises. She turned her eyes upon him, looking unutterable agony; she could not speak. And then again came the spasm, and she reared herself to meet it. She seemed to loom before his eyes; she was no longer human, but in her agony transfigured. She was the suffering of being, made flesh; a figure epic, colossal, worthy of an Angelo; the mighty mother herself, the earth-mother, from whose womb have come the races!
And then—“Perhaps she would be more comfortable with another pillow,” said the doctor, and the spell was broken.
Corydon shook her head with swift impatience. This was her conflict, the gesture seemed to say. They had only to let her alone—she had no words to spare for them.