Towards Morning | Page 6

old parchment, his dry lips opened in a
smothered gasp.
"Well?"
"Herr Felde if I could be excused this afternoon I am not well you
know how it is the pain it's very bad."
Something leapt up out of the dark places of the Herr Amtschreiber's
heart. It was tigerish bestial. It had lain there all night, ringed in by
enemies, goaded and starved, gnawing the roots of its hiding-place. As
it leapt upon its victim the Herr Amtschreiber could have screamed out
in an ecstasy of relief.
His hand lying on the desk clenched itself to a fist.
"Do you perhaps take this for a hospital, Herr Heim?" he asked.
Their eyes met and held for a moment. Then the old man turned away.

He went back to his desk and climbed on to his stool painfully, like a
tired child.
The Herr Amtschreiber bent over his work. The rims of his eyes stung
as though they had been burnt with fire.
IV
The cheap lamp nailed to the wall had been shaded and in the half
obscurity where one form merged itself in another the voice sounded
faint and far off as the memory of a dream.
"Our own," it said, "our very own."
The Herr Amtschreiber pressed his cheek against the hand that lay so
heavily upon the quilt. Gently it was withdrawn and fumbling like the
hand of some one newly blind rested at last on his bowed head,
soothing him with a pitying, drowsy movement. "Mustn't cry,
Mdnnchen it's all right now it was very bad but it's over and it's worth
while to have something of our very own."
"I am so proud," he whispered, " it is so wonderful."
"A life we've made together to take care of to make happier than we
have been."
"Our son our son," he repeated simply.
The doctor and the nurse standing deep in shadow smiled palely as
though this high-song of thanksgiving, so familiar, so eternal, could
never lose its pathetic humour. The doctor bent down and touched the
kneeling man upon the shoulder.
"Come!" he said. "You must let her sleep."
The Herr Amtschreiber stumbled to his feet. He did not look at the face
that seemed to float like a white flower on a dark tide, nor at the
unknown who slept in the low cradle. He went out, reeling drunkenly,
through the door which the doctor held open for him. His teeth

chattered in fever and he put his hands against the stove, letting its
warm comfort steal up through his veins.
The plump little doctor watched him, still smiling and stroking his neat
beard.
"You will take it more calmly next time," he said prosaically. "The first
is always a shock. One takes children so much for granted and other
people's children are never wonderful. But you mustn't excite her, you
know. It won't do either for her or for the child."
The Herr Amtschreiber lifted his head.
"I couldn't come," he muttered. "You see, there was work at the
office--"
"Of course. Very admirable of you. It's our old German sense of duty.
As it happened it was all right. But I had an anxious quarter of an hour.
You see, your wife is not so young any more and in that case there is
always danger. I thought I might have to choose between the two of
them suddenly. There was no time to ask you. But she chose. A brave
woman. I congratulate you, my friend."
"And the "child?"
"A fine boy a regular little grenadier." Dr. Roth picked up his hat,
chuckling. "I'll be round to-morrow. No don't bother to see me out
you're not fit. Take a good glass of something to steady you. Goodnight
good-night my dear fellow."
The door closed. But a minute later Anna came in bearing the lamp.
She looked at him, her big shadowed eyes heavy with weariness. Yet
there was a smile in them that same slow smile of deep, unconscious
wisdom.
"The Herr Amtschreiber is glad that it is a boy?" she asked softly.
"Yes yes."

"One is always glad when it is a son," she said. "When I was born my
mother cried. There are too many of us."
"But you have brothers?" he muttered absently.
"Oh, yes there were four two are in America. And two are serving their
time. It is not easy to work the fields without them. In the harvest time
my mother goes out and gathers in the corn. She is old now so old--"
He did not hear her. She went out so ft- footed as she had come and he
stretched his arms above his head so that he seemed to himself to grow
young and strong and tall. The shuddering fear had gone. He