Her eyes were still. There was a great Pain clenching her breast and her bowels. No pain had been before.
“How long have I been lying here? How many days ... is it weeks?... I have not eaten? Will nobody come?”
Her body was Pain. Her body was coming alive, so it was Pain.
“Will no one come? Will you let me die like a cat? I am thirsty ... I am sick! I cannot move. I danced too much. I am paralyzed with Dancing. Don’t let me die.”
Her body was coming alive, so that it cried.
“Edith ... Edith, save me! Harry—won’t you nurse me? I have nursed you so often. Water! My child! O Mother ... Clara I did not mean——“
Her body was coming alive, so that it was afraid. It screamed, it lied, it abused: it wanted the water of life.
“It is too late. I am alone. Something was wrong with you, Fanny. You seemed good and sound enough. But something was wrong with you, Fanny.... Look at you now: you Fanny Dirk, you bright Fanny ... mother and wife ... you now.”
She knew she was not to die. She knew there was nothing wrong.
“Does God send clean creatures to a death like this? Death in a stinking room where no one comes to see what is the matter after days and days. Starving to death alone, in New York.... O how rotten you must have been!”