The Genius (86 page)

Eugene wondered in this final hour at the mechanical, practical,
business-like manner in which all these tragedies—the hospital was
full of women—were taken. Miss De Sale went about her duties calm,
smiling, changing the pillows occasionally for Angela,
straightening the disordered bedclothes, adjusting the window
curtains, fixing her own lace cap or apron before the mirror which
was attached to the dresser, or before the one that was set in the
closet door, and doing other little things without number. She took
no interest in Eugene's tense attitude, or Myrtle's when she was
there, but went in and out, talking, jesting with other nurses,
doing whatever she had to do quite undisturbed.

"Isn't there anything that can be done to relieve her of this
pain?" Eugene asked wearily at one point. His own nerves were torn.
"She can't stand anything like that. She hasn't the strength."

She shook her head placidly. "There isn't a thing that anyone
can do. We can't give her an opiate. It stops the process. She just
has to bear it. All women do."

"All women," thought Eugene. Good God! Did all women go through
a siege like this every time a child was born? There were two
billion people on the earth now. Had there been two billion such
scenes? Had he come this way?—Angela? every child? What a terrible
mistake she had made—so unnecessary, so foolish. It was too late
now, though, to speculate concerning this. She was suffering. She
was agonizing.

The house surgeon came back after a time to look at her
condition, but was not at all alarmed apparently. He nodded his
head rather reassuringly to Miss De Sale, who stood beside him. "I
think she's doing all right," he said.

"I think so, too," she replied.

Eugene wondered how they could say this. She was suffering
horribly.

"I'm going into Ward A for an hour," said the doctor. "If any
change comes you can get me there."

"What change could come," asked Eugene of himself, "any worse
than had already appeared?" He was thinking of the drawings,
though, he had seen in the book—wondering if Angela would have to
be assisted in some of the grim, mechanical ways indicated there.
They illustrated to him the deadly possibilities of what might
follow.

About midnight the expected change, which Eugene in agonized
sympathy was awaiting, arrived. Myrtle had not returned. She had
been waiting to hear from Eugene. Although Angela had been groaning
before, pulling herself tense at times, twisting in an aimless,
unhappy fashion, now she seemed to spring up and fall as though she
had fainted. A shriek accompanied the movement, and then another
and another. He rushed to the door, but the nurse was there to meet
him.

"It's here," she said quietly. She went to a phone outside and
called for Dr. Willets. A second nurse from some other room came in
and stood beside her. In spite of the knotted cords on Angela's
face, the swollen veins, the purple hue, they were calm. Eugene
could scarcely believe it, but he made an intense effort to appear
calm himself. So this was childbirth!

In a few moments Dr. Willets came in. He also was calm, business
like, energetic. He was dressed in a black suit and white linen
jacket, but took that off, leaving the room as he did so, and
returned with his sleeves rolled up and his body incased in a long
white apron, such as Eugene had seen butchers wear. He went over to
Angela and began working with her, saying something to the nurse
beside him which Eugene did not hear. He could not look—he dared
not at first.

At the fourth or fifth convulsive shriek, a second doctor came
in, a young man of Willets' age, and dressed as he was, who also
took his place beside him. Eugene had never seen him before. "Is it
a case of forceps?" he asked.

"I can't tell," said the other. "Dr. Lambert is handling this
personally. He ought to be here by now."

There was a step in the hall and the senior physician or
obstetrician had entered. In the lower hall he had removed his
great coat and fur gloves. He was dressed in his street clothes,
but after looking at Angela, feeling her heart and temples, he went
out and changed his coat for an apron, like the others. His sleeves
were rolled up, but he did not immediately do anything but watch
the house surgeon, whose hands were bloody.

"Can't they give her chloroform?" asked Eugene, to whom no one
was paying any attention, of Miss De Sale.

She scarcely heard, but shook her head. She was busy dancing
attendance on her very far removed superiors, the physicians.

"I would advise you to leave the room," said Dr. Lambert to
Eugene, coming over near him. "You can do nothing here. You will be
of no assistance whatsoever. You may be in the way."

Eugene left, but it was only to pace agonizedly up and down the
hall. He thought of all the things that had passed between him and
Angela—the years—the struggles. All at once he thought of Myrtle,
and decided to call her up—she wanted to be there. Then he decided
for the moment he would not. She could do nothing. Then he thought
of the Christian Science practitioner. Myrtle could get her to give
Angela absent treatment. Anything, anything—it was a shame that she
should suffer so.

"Myrtle," he said nervously over the phone, when he reached her,
"this is Eugene. Angela is suffering terribly. The birth is on.
Can't you get Mrs. Johns to help her? It's terrible!"

"Certainly, Eugene. I'll come right down. Don't worry."

He hung up the receiver and walked up and down the hall again.
He could hear mumbled voices—he could hear muffled screams. A
nurse, not Miss De Sale, came out and wheeled in the operating
table.

"Are they going to operate?" he asked feverishly. "I'm Mr.
Witla."

"I don't think so. I don't know. Dr. Lambert wants her to be
taken to the operating room in case it is necessary."

They wheeled her out after a few moments and on to the elevator
which led to the floor above. Her face was slightly covered while
she was being so transferred, and those who were around prevented
him from seeing just how it was with her, but because of her
stillness, he wondered, and the nurse said that a very slight
temporary opiate had been administered—not enough to affect the
operation, if it were found necessary. Eugene stood by dumbly,
terrified. He stood in the hall, outside the operating room, half
afraid to enter. The head surgeon's warning came back to him, and,
anyhow, what good could he do? He walked far down the dim-lit
length of the hall before him, wondering, and looked out on a space
where was nothing but snow. In the distance a long lighted train
was winding about a high trestle like a golden serpent. There were
automobiles honking and pedestrians laboring along in the snow.
What a tangle life was, he thought. What a pity. Here a little
while ago, he wanted Angela to die, and now,—God Almighty, that was
her voice groaning! He would be punished for his evil thoughts—yes,
he would. His sins, all these terrible deeds would be coming home
to him. They were coming home to him now. What a tragedy his career
was! What a failure! Hot tears welled up into his eyes, his lower
lip trembled, not for himself, but for Angela. He was so sorry all
at once. He shut it all back. No, by God, he wouldn't cry! What
good were tears? It was for Angela his pain was, and tears would
not help her now.

Thoughts of Suzanne came to him—Mrs. Dale, Colfax, but he shut
them out. If they could see him now! Then another muffled scream
and he walked quickly back. He couldn't stand this.

He didn't go in, however. Instead he listened intently, hearing
something which sounded like gurgling, choking breathing. Was that
Angela?

"The low forceps"—it was Dr. Lambert's voice.

"The high forceps." It was his voice again. Something clinked
like metal in a bowl.

"It can't be done this way, I'm afraid," it was Dr. Lambert's
voice again. "We'll have to operate. I hate to do it, too."

A nurse came out to see if Eugene were near. "You had better go
down into the waiting room, Mr. Witla," she cautioned. "They'll be
bringing her out pretty soon. It won't be long now."

"No," he said all at once, "I want to see for myself." He walked
into the room where Angela was now lying on the operating table in
the centre of the room. A six-globed electrolier blazed close
overhead. At her head was Dr. Willets, administering the
anæsthetic. On the right side was Dr. Lambert, his hands encased in
rubber gloves, bloody, totally unconscious of Eugene, holding a
scalpel. One of the two nurses was near Angela's feet, officiating
at a little table of knives, bowls, water, sponges, bandages. On
the left of the table was Miss De Sale. Her hands were arranging
some cloths at the side of Angela's body. At her side, opposite Dr.
Lambert, was another surgeon whom Eugene did not know. Angela was
breathing stertorously. She appeared to be unconscious. Her face
was covered with cloths and a rubber mouth piece or cone. Eugene
cut his palms with his nails.

So they have to operate, after all, he thought. She is as bad as
that. The Cæsarian operation. Then they couldn't even get the child
from her by killing it. Seventy-five per cent. of the cases
recorded were successful, so the book said, but how many cases were
not recorded. Was Dr. Lambert a great surgeon? Could Angela stand
ether—with her weak heart?

He stood there looking at this wonderful picture while Dr.
Lambert quickly washed his hands. He saw him take a small gleaming
steel knife—bright as polished silver. The old man's hands were
encased in rubber gloves, which looked bluish white under the
light. Angela's exposed flesh was the color of a candle. He bent
over her.

"Keep her breathing normal if you can," he said to the young
doctor. "If she wakes give her ether. Doctor, you'd better look
after the arteries."

He cut softly a little cut just below the centre of the abdomen
apparently, and Eugene saw little trickling streams of blood spring
where his blade touched. It did not seem a great cut. A nurse was
sponging away the blood as fast as it flowed. As he cut again, the
membrane that underlies the muscles of the abdomen and protects the
intestines seemed to spring into view.

"I don't want to cut too much," said the surgeon calmly—almost
as though he were talking to himself. "These intestines are apt to
become unmanageable. If you just lift up the ends, doctor. That's
right. The sponge, Miss Wood. Now, if we can just cut here
enough"—he was cutting again like an honest carpenter or cabinet
worker.

He dropped the knife he held into Miss Wood's bowl of water. He
reached into the bleeding, wound, constantly sponged by the nurse,
exposing something. What was that? Eugene's heart jerked. He was
reaching down now in there with his middle finger—his fore and
middle fingers afterwards, and saying, "I don't find the leg. Let's
see. Ah, yes. Here we have it!"

"Can I move the head a little for you, doctor?" It was the young
doctor at his left talking.

"Careful! Careful! It's bent under in the region of the coccyx.
I have it now, though. Slowly, doctor, look out for the
placenta."

Something was coming up out of this horrible cavity, which was
trickling with blood from the cut. It was queer a little foot, a
leg, a body, a head.

"As God is my judge," said Eugene to himself, his eyes brimming
again.

"The placenta, doctor. Look after the peritoneum, Miss Wood.
It's alive, all right. How is her pulse, Miss De Sale?"

"A little weak, doctor."

"Use less ether. There, now we have it! We'll put that back.
Sponge. We'll have to sew this afterwards, Willets. I won't trust
this to heal alone. Some surgeons think it will, but I mistrust her
recuperative power. Three or four stitches, anyhow."

They were working like carpenters, cabinet workers,
electricians. Angela might have been a lay figure for all they
seemed to care. And yet there was a tenseness here, a great hurry
through slow sure motion. "The less haste, the more speed," popped
into Eugene's mind—the old saw. He stared as if this were all a
dream—a nightmare. It might have been a great picture like
Rembrandt's "The Night Watch." One young doctor, the one he did not
know, was holding aloft a purple object by the foot. It might have
been a skinned rabbit, but Eugene's horrified eyes realized that it
was his child—Angela's child—the thing all this horrible struggle
and suffering was about. It was discolored, impossible, a myth, a
monster. He could scarcely believe his eyes, and yet the doctor was
striking it on the back with his hand, looking at it curiously. At
the same moment came a faint cry—not a cry, either—only a faint,
queer sound.

"She's awfully little, but I guess she'll make out." It was Dr.
Willets talking of the baby. Angela's baby. Now the nurse had it.
That was Angela's flesh they had been cutting. That was Angela's
wound they were sewing. This wasn't life. It was a nightmare. He
was insane and being bedeviled by spirits.

"Now, doctor, I guess that will keep. The blankets, Miss De
Sale. You can take her away."

They were doing lots of things to Angela, fastening bandages
about her, removing the cone from her mouth, changing her position
back to one of lying flat, preparing to bathe her, moving her to
the rolling table, wheeling her out while she moaned unconscious
under ether.

Eugene could scarcely stand the sickening, stertorous breathing.
It was such a strange sound to come from her—as if her unconscious
soul were crying. And the child was crying, too, healthily.

"Oh, God, what a life, what a life!" he thought. To think that
things should have to come this way. Death, incisions!
unconsciousness! pain! Could she live? Would she? And now he was a
father.

He turned and there was the nurse holding this littlest girl on
a white gauze blanket or cushion. She was doing something to
it—rubbing oil on it. It was a pink child now, like any other
baby.