all around me. Then I heard
the doctor say: "Give 'er another whiff or two." His voice sounded
far-away, as though he were speaking through the Simplon Tunnel, and
not merely through his teeth, within twelve inches of my nose.

I took my whiff or two. I gulped at that chloroform like a thirsty
Bedouin at a wadi-spring. I went down into the pea-green emptiness
again, and forgot about the Kelly pad and the recurring waves of pain
that came bigger and bigger and tried to sweep through my racked old
body like breakers through the ribs of a stranded schooner. I forgot
about the hateful metallic clink of steel things against an
instrument-tray, and about the loganberry pimple on the nose of the
red-headed surgical nurse who'd been sent into the labor room to help.

I went wafting off into a feather-pillowy pit of infinitude. I even
forgot to preach to myself, as I'd been doing for the last month or
two. I knew that my time was upon me, as the Good Book says. There are
a lot of things in this life, I remembered, which woman is able to
squirm out of. But here, Mistress Tabbie, was one you couldn't escape.
Here was a situation that _had_ to be faced. Here was a time I had to
knuckle down, had to grin and bear it, had to go through with it to
the bitter end. For other folks, whatever they may be able to do for
you, aren't able to have your babies for you.

Then I ebbed up out of the pea-green depths again, and was troubled by
the sound of voices, so thin and far-away I couldn't make out what
they were saying. Then came the beating of a tom-tom, so loud that it
hurt. When that died away for a minute or two I caught the sound of
the sharp and quavery squall of something, of something which had
never squalled before, a squall of protest and injured pride, of
maltreated youth resenting the ignominious way it must enter the
world. Then the tom-tom beating started up again, and I opened my eyes
to make sure it wasn't the Grenadiers' Band going by.

I saw a face bending over mine, seeming to float in space. It was the
color of a half-grown cucumber, and it made me think of a tropical
fish in an aquarium when the water needed changing.

"She's coming out, Doctor," I heard a woman's voice say. It was a
voice as calm as God's and slightly nasal. For a moment I thought I'd
died and gone to Heaven. But I finally observed and identified the
loganberry pimple, and realized that the tom-tom beating was merely
the pounding of the steam-pip