Snapshots a room for washing dishes and for similar work And then, as by a miracle, the pigmy chest, which his hands enclosed, gave a short, convulsive heave, another… and another… Andrew turned giddy. The sense of life, springing beneath his fingers after all that unavailing striving, was so exquisite it almost made him faint. He redoubled his efforts feverishly. The child was gasping now, deeper and deeper.
A bubble of mucus came from one tiny nostril, a joyful iridescent bubble. The limbs were no longer boneless. The head no longer lay back spinelessly. The blanched skin was slowly turning pink.
Then, exquisitely, came the child’s cry. “Dear Father in heaven,” the nurse sobbed hysterically. “It’s come — it’s come alive.” Andrew handed her the child. He felt weak and dazed.
About him the room lay in a shuddering litter: blankets, towels, basins, soiled instruments, the hypodermic syringe impaled by its point in the linoleum, the ewer knocked over, the kettle on its side in a puddle of water. Upon the huddled bed the mother still dreamed her way quietly through the anaesthetic. The old woman still stood against the wall. But her hands were together, her lips moved without sound.
She was praying. Mechanically Andrew wrung out his sleeve, pulled on his jacket. “I’ll fetch my bag later, nurse.” He went downstairs, through the kitchen into the scullery3. His lips were dry.
At the scullery he took a long drink of water. He reached for his hat and coat. Outside he found Joe standing on the pavement with a tense, expectant face. “All right, Joe,” he said thickly.
“Both all right.” It was quite light. Nearly five o’clock. A few miners were already in the streets: the first of the night shift moving out. As Andrew walked with them, spent and slow, his footfalls echoing with the others under the morning sky, he kept thinking blindly, oblivious to all other work he had done in Blaenelly, “I’ve done something; oh, God!
I’ve done something real at last.” -