Hoping, praying, that she was mistaken, and that what appeared to be
on the bed was but a trick of her imagination, she continued staring
in an agony of anticipation. But the figure remained--extended at full
length like a corpse. The minutes slowly passed, a church clock boomed
two, and the body moved. Letty's jaw fell, her eyes almost bulged from
her head, whilst her fingers closed convulsively on the folds of her
night-dress. The unmistakable sound of breathing now issued from the
region of the bed, and the dust-cover commenced slowly to slip aside.
Inch by inch it moved, until first of all Letty saw a few wisps of
dark hair, then a few more, then a thick cluster; then something white
and shining--a protruding forehead; then dark, very dark brows; then
two eyelids, yellow, swollen, and fortunately tightly closed; then--a
purple conglomeration of Letty knew not what--of anything but what
was human. The sight was so monstrous it appalled her; and she was
overcome with a species of awe and repulsion, for which the language
of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. She momentarily
forgot that what she looked on was merely superphysical, but regarded
it as something alive, something that ought to have been a child,
comely and healthy as herself--and she hated it. It was an outrage on
maternity, a blot on nature, a filthy discredit to the house, a
blight, a sore, a gangrene. It turned over in its sleep, the cover was
hurled aside, and a grotesque object, round, pulpy, webbed, and of
leprous whiteness--an object which Letty could hardly associate with a
hand--came grovelling out.
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