as a child: the Humanity and the Hour conquered the repugnant spirit.

"I yield! Mother and child--save both!"

....

In the dark chamber lay Viola, in the sharpest agonies of travail; life
seemed rending itself away in the groans and cries that spoke of pain in
the midst of frenzy; and still, in groan and cry, she called on Zanoni,
her beloved. The physician looked to the clock; on it beat: the Heart
of Time,--regularly and slowly,--Heart that never sympathised with Life,
and never flagged for Death! "The cries are fainter," said the leech;
"in ten minutes more all will be past."

Fool! the minutes laugh at thee; Nature, even now, like a blue sky
through a shattered temple, is smiling through the tortured frame. The
breathing grows more calm and hushed; the voice of delirium is dumb,--a
sweet dream has come to Viola. Is it a dream, or is it the soul that
sees? She thinks suddenly that she is with Zanoni, that her burning head
is pillowed on his bosom; she thinks, as he gazes on her, that his eyes
dispel the tortures that prey upon her,--the touch of his hand cools the
fever on her brow; she hears his voice in murmurs,--it is a music from
which the fiends fly. Where is the mountain that seemed to press upon
her temples? Like a vapour, it rolls away. In the frosts of the winter
night, she sees the sun laughing in luxurious heaven,--she hears the
whisper of green leaves; the beautiful world, valley and stream and
woodland, lie before, and with a common voice speak to her, "We are
not yet past for thee!" Fool of drugs and formula, look to thy
dial-plate!--the hand has moved on; the minutes are with Eternity; the
soul thy sentence would have dismissed, still dwells on the shores of
Time. She sleeps: the fever abates; the convulsions are gone; the living
rose blooms upon her cheek; the crisis is past! Husband, thy wife lives;
lover, thy universe is no solitude! Heart of Time, beat on! A while, a
little while,--joy! joy! joy!--father, embrace thy child!

CHAPTER 6.II.

Tristis Erinnys
Praetulit infaustas sanguinolenta faces.
Ovid.

(Erinnys, doleful and bloody, extends the unblessed torches.)

And they placed the child in the father's arms! As silently he bent
over it, tears--tears, how human!--fell from his eyes like rain! And
the little one smiled through the tears that bathed its cheeks! Ah, with
what happy tears we welcome the stranger into our sorrowing world!
With what agonising tears