Then a hissing, spattering sound issued from the kitchen. "The beans!"
Mrs. Danner said. The second idyl of their lives was finished.
Alone in his bed, tossing on the humid muslin sheets, Danner struggled
within himself. The hour that was at hand would be short. The logical
step after the tadpoles and the kitten was to vaccinate the human mammal
with his serum. To produce a super-child, an invulnerable man. As a
scientist he was passionately intrigued by the idea. As a husband he
was dubious. As a member of society he was terrified.
That his wife would submit to the plan or to the step it necessitated
was beyond belief. She would never allow a sticky tube of foreign animal
matter to be poured into her veins. She would not permit the will of God
to be altered or her offspring to be the subject of experiment. Another
man would have laughed at the notion of persuading her. Mr. Danner never
laughed at matters that involved his wife.
There was another danger. If the child was female and became a woman
like his wife, then the effect of such strength would be awful indeed.
He envisioned a militant reformer, an iron-bound Calvinist, remodelling
the world single-handed. A Scotch Lilith, a matronly Gabriel, a
she-Hercules. He shuddered.
A hundred times he denied his science. A hundred and one times it begged
him to be served. Each decision to drop the idea was followed by an
effort to discover means to inoculate her without her knowledge. To his
wakeful ears came the reverberation of her snores. He rose and paced the
floor. A scheme came to him. After that he was lost.
Mrs. Danner was surprised when her husband brought a bottle of
blackberry cordial to her. It was his first gift to her in more than a
year. She was fond of cordial. He was not. She took a glass after supper
and then a second, which she drank "for him." He smiled nervously and
urged her to drink it. His hands clenched and unclenched. When she
finished the second glass, he watched her constantly.
"I feel sleepy," she said.
"You're tired." He tried to dissemble the eagerness in his voice. "Why
don't you lie down?"
"Strange," she said a moment later. "I'm not usually so--so--misty."
He nodded. The opiate in the cordial was working. She lay on the couch.
She slept. The professor hastened to his laboratory. An hour later he
emerged with a hypodermic syringe in his hand. His wife lay limply, one
hand touching the floor. Her stern, dark face was relaxed. He sat beside
her. His conscience raged. He hated the duplicity his task required. His
eyes lingered on the swollen abdomen. It was cryptic, enigmatic, filled
with portent. He jabbed the needle. She did not stir. After that he
substituted a partly empty bottle of cordial for the drugged liquor. It
was, perhaps, the most practical thing he had ever done in his life.
Mrs. Danner could not explain herself on the following morning. She
belaboured him. "Why didn't you wake me and make me go to bed? Sleeping
in my clothes! I never did such a thing in my life."
"I couldn't wake you. I tried."
"Rubbish."
"You were sleeping so hard--you refused to move."
"Sometimes, old as you are, I'd like to thrash you."
Danner went to the college. There was nothing more to do, nothing more
to require his concentration. He could wait--as he had waited before. He
trembled occasionally with the hope that his child would be a boy--a
sane, healthy boy. Then, in the end, his work might bear fruit. "The
_Euglena viridis_," he said in flat tones, "will be the subject of
to-morrow's study. I want you gentlemen to diagram the structure of the
_Euglena viridis_ and write five hundred words on its vital principles
and processes. It is particularly interesting because it shares
properties that are animal with properties that are vegetable."
September, October, November. Chilly winds from the high mountains. The
day-by-day freezing over of ponds and brooks. Smoke at the tops of
chimneys. Snow. Thanksgiving. And always Mrs. Danner growing with the
burden of her offspring. Mr. Danner sitting silent, watching, wondering,
waiting. It would soon be time.
On Christmas morning there entered into Mrs. Danner's vitals a pain that
was indefinable and at the same time certain. It thrust all thought from
her mind. Then it diminished and she summoned her husband. "Get the
doctor. It's coming."
Danner tottered into the street and executed his errand. The doctor
smiled cheerfully. "Just beginning? I'll be over this afternoon."
"But--good Lord--you can't leave her like--"
"Nonsense."
He came home and found his wife dusting. He shook his head. "Get Mrs.
Nolan," she said. Then she threw herself on the bed again.
Mrs. Nolan, the nearest neighbour, wife of Professor Nolan and mother of
four children, was delighted. This particular Christmas was going to be
a day of some excitement. She prepared hot water and bustled with
unessential occupation. Danner sat prostrate in the parlour. He had done
it. He had done more--and that would be known later. Perhaps it would
fail. He hoped it would fail. He wrung his hands. The concept of another
person in his house had not yet occurred to him. Birth was his wife's
sickness--until it was over.
The doctor arrived after Danner had made his third trip. Mrs. Nolan
prepared lunch. "I love to cook in other people's kitchens," she said.
He wanted to strike her. Curious, he thought. At three-thirty the
industry of the doctor and Mrs. Nolan increased and the silence of the
two, paradoxically, increased with it.
Then the early twilight fell. Mrs. Danner lay with her lank black
hair plastered to her brow. She did not moan. Pain twisted and
convulsed her. Downstairs Danner sat and sweated. A cry--his wife's.
Another--unfamiliar. Scurrying feet on the bare parts of the floor. He
looked up. Mrs. Nolan leaned over the stair well.
"It's a boy, Mr. Danner. A beautiful boy. And husky. You never saw such
a husky baby."
"It ought to be," he said. They found him later in the back yard,
prancing on the snow with weird, ungainly steps. A vacant smile lighted
his features. They didn't blame him.