“Here is your husband,” the doctor said.
“Oh, darling, I have the most wonderful doctor,” Catherine said in a very strange voice. “He’s been telling me the most wonderful story and when the pain came too badly he put me all the way out. He’s wonderful. You’re wonderful, doctor.”
“You’re drunk,” I said.
“I know it,” Catherine said. “But you shouldn’t say it.” Then “Give it to me. Give it to me.” She clutched hold of the mask and breathed short and deep, pantingly, making the respirator click. Then she gave a long sigh and the doctor reached with his left hand and lifted away the mask.
“That was a very big one,” Catherine said. Her voice was very strange. “I’m not going to die now, darling. I’m past where I was going to die. Aren’t you glad?”
“Don’t you get in that place again.”
“I won’t. I’m not afraid of it though. I won’t die, darling.”
“You will not do any such foolishness,” the doctor said. “You would not die and leave your husband.”
“Oh, no. I won’t die. I wouldn’t die. It’s silly to die. There it comes. Give it to me.”
After a while the doctor said, “You will go out, Mr. Henry, for a few moments and I will make an examination.”
“He wants to see how I am doing,” Catherine said. “You can come back afterward, darling, can’t he, doctor?”
“Yes,” said the doctor. “I will send word when he can come back.”
I went out the door and down the hall to the room where Catherine was to be after the baby came. I sat in a chair there and looked at the room. I had the paper in my coat that I had bought when I went out for lunch and I read it. It was beginning to be dark outside and I turned the light on to read. After a while I stopped reading and turned off the light and watched it get dark outside. I wondered why the doctor did not send for me. Maybe it was better I was away. He probably wanted me away for a while. I looked at my watch. If he did not send for me in ten minutes I would go down anyway.
Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other. Thank God for gas, anyway. What must it have been like before there were an?sthetics? Once it started, they were in the mill-race. Catherine had a good time in the time of pregnancy. It wasn’t bad. She was hardly ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until toward the last. So now they got her in the end. You never got away with anything. Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty times. And what if she should die? She won’t die. People don’t die in childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what if she should die? She won’t die. She’s just having a bad time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She’s only having a bad time. Afterward we’d say what a bad time and Catherine would say it wasn’t really so bad. But what if she should die? She can’t die. Yes, but what if she should die? She can’t, I tell you. Don’t be a fool. It’s just a bad time. It’s just nature giving her hell. It’s only the first labor, which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should die? She can’t die. Why would she die? What reason is there for her to die? There’s just a child that has to be born, the by-product of good nights in Milan. It makes trouble and is born and then you look after it and get fond of it maybe. But what if she should die? She won’t die. But what if she should die? She won’t. She’s all right. But what if she should die? She can’t die. But what if she should die? Hey, what about that? What if she should die?
The doctor came into the room.
“How does it go, doctor?”
“It doesn’t go,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. I made an examination – ” He detailed the result of the examination. “Since then I’ve waited to see. But it doesn’t go.”
“What do you advise?”
“There are two things. Either a high forceps delivery which can tear and be quite dangerous besides being possibly bad for the child, and a Caesarean.”
“What is the danger of a Caesarean?” What if she should die!
“It should be no greater than the danger of an ordinary delivery.”
“Would you do it yourself?”
“Yes. I would need possibly an hour to get things ready and to get the people I would need. Perhaps a little less.”
“What do you think?”
“I would advise a Caesarean operation. If it were my wife I would do a Caesarean.”
“What are the after effects?”
“There are none. There is only the scar.”
“What about infection?”
“The danger is not so great as in a high forceps delivery.”
“What if you just went on and did nothing?”
“You would have to do something eventually. Mrs. Henry is already losing much of her strength. The sooner we operate now the safer.”
“Operate as soon as you can,” I said.
“I will go and give the instructions.”
I went into the delivery room. The nurse was with Catherine who lay on the table, big under the sheet, looking very pale and tired.
“Did you tell him he could do it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that grand. Now it will be all over in an hour. I’m almost done, darling. I’m going all to pieces. Please give me that. It doesn’t work. Oh, it doesn’t work!”
“Breathe deeply.”
“I am. Oh, it doesn’t work any more. It doesn’t work!”