felt the presence of uncleanness. So were her own,
when they showed her the pale child. She had indeed done an unclean and
unnatural thing when she had brought forth a child that lived yet was
unloved; who was born of a mother that survived and looked at it, and
who yet had no mother, since she felt no motion towards it, but a deep
shiver of her blood away from it; who aroused no interest in the whole
universe save her own abhorrence; who was, as was inevitable in one so
begotten and so born, intrinsically disgusting in substance.

"Well, I have Richard to help me bear this," she said to herself, but
her heart reminded her that though she had Richard, this child had no
one. Pitifully she put out her arms and drew it to her breast, but
detected for herself the fundamentally insincere kindness that a
stranger will show to a child, confident that before long it will be
claimed by its own kin.

She always remembered how good the little thing had been as it lay in
her arms, and how distasteful. Those were always to remain its silent
characteristics. It was so good. "As good," the nurses used to say, "as
if he were a little girl." It hardly ever cried, and when it did it
curiously showed its difference from Richard. He hated being a baby and
subject to other people's wills, and would lie in a cot and roar with
resentment; but this child, when it felt a need that was not satisfied,
did not rebel, but turned its face to the pillow and whined softly. That
was a strange and disquieting thing to watch. She would stand in the
shadow looking at the back of its little head, so repellently covered
with hair that was like fluff off the floor, and listening to the cry
that trailed from its lips like a dirty piece of string; and she would
wonder why it did this, partly because she really wanted to know, and
partly because it fended off the moment when she had to take it in her
arms. Perhaps, she reflected, it muted its rage because it knew that it
was unlovable and must curry favour by not troubling people. Indeed, it
was as unlovable as a child could be. It was not pleasant naked, for its
bones looked at once fragile and coarse, and its flesh was lax, and in
its clothes it was squalid, for it was always being sick or dribbling.
Then her heart reproached her, and she admitted that it cried softly
because it had a gentle spirit, and she would move forward quickly and
do what it desired, using, by an effort of will, those loving words tha