Chapter IX: The Baby

THE door opened, and an angular, old-maidish-looking nurse entered with a baby in her arms. “Feeding time,” she said.

She went to the bed and laid the baby down beside Isabel. “I’ll bring the bottle,” she said, and went out.

“It’s a good thing,” said Isabel, “that this is a bottle feeding. I’m not supposed to go through scenes like this--it’s not good for my milk.”

Norman looked down at the baby in a kind of terrified curiosity. It was a very tiny thing, with a round face, and some blond hair like his own on the queer-shaped skull. The blue eyes blinked up at him sleepily.

“Yes,” said Isabel, “this is what we have been rowing about.” She turned to the baby. “This man thinks I ought to take care of you,” she said. “But you know better, don’t you? I’m a very poor mother, I haven’t even enough milk for you, and the little I have is not up to standard. You won’t be sorry to see the last of me.” She smiled at Norman. “Well,” she said, “he’s a healthy little bastard, isn’t he?”

Norman flinched at the word.

“Well, he is, you know,” said Isabel. “And he’s too young to have his feelings hurt by mentioning it. You and I ought to be able to face the fact. After all, Norman, it’s the sort of thing that happens quite regularly and inevitably in every civilized country on the globe. Do you happen to know the statistics for illegitimacy? I made Dr. Zerneke give me something to read about it. It’s very interesting. It seems that in the United States about one in every forty-two births is illegitimate. I’ve been figuring it out. Sixty thousand illegitimate births a year comes to about a hundred and sixty-four a day, or seven an hour, or one every eight minutes and twenty seconds. Statistics are very consoling. They take away the uniqueness of one’s discomforts.”

He was looking at the baby. Gradually it had become thoroughly awake. It stretched its arms, and yawned magnificently. Its lips began to make sucking movements. Its face grew red, and broke into a wrinkled grimace of anger.

Isabel went on talking. “Every year--you see, I’ve had nothing to do for days except to study statistics--out of every hundred and fifty-nine unmarried females of childbearing age, one gives birth to an illegitimate child. This year it so happened that the lot fell to me.”

A loud wail came from the little bundle.

“I’ve nothing for you,” said Isabel. “You’ll have to wait for your bottle.”

“Why is his head such a queer shape?” asked Norman.

“You ought to have seen it at first. It was pulled out of shape getting into the world. It’s getting to look all right now.”

The baby’s wails grew more insistent.

“Just a minute, young man,” said Isabel.

“Have you--named him?” asked Norman.

“Well,” said Isabel, a little embarrassed, “it really makes no difference--the people who are going to have him will never know, and they’ll name him all over again. But when I first saw him, he did look so much like you! Do you mind?”

“You named him Norman?”

“When the doctor was making out the birth certificate, she told me I’d have to give him some sort of first name--the first one that came into my head would do, she said. And that was the first one that came into my head. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But it doesn’t really implicate you, Norman.”

“Why the devil,” asked Norman, “should you be so considerate of _me_?”

“Because it wasn’t your fault, Norman. You didn’t know you were going to be let in for anything like this. You’ve your own life to live. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“If--for any reason--” he said, “you had decided to keep the baby, what would you have done then--about me?”

“I’d never have told you anything about it at all. It would have been my baby. I don’t see why you should be asked to support it, in any case.”

“But I think that’s silly,” said Norman. “Because I could support it--and you couldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I could. Girls do, you know. And I’ll tell you this. I didn’t intend to, but I will.... You see, when a girl is going to give up her baby for adoption, she doesn’t nurse it at all, and never sees it--except just once, before she signs the papers. They manage it that way for fear of arousing the maternal instinct. Because usually, after a girl has nursed a baby, she wants to keep it. But that seemed to me a cowardly thing to do. I told Dr. Zerneke I’d nurse my baby, and take my chances of my maternal instinct being aroused. I didn’t explain to her, but I can tell _you_--it was a kind of test of myself: whether I was destined to be a mother or a painter. I decided that if I felt like keeping the baby, I would--I’d get a job of some kind and give up my year in Paris and everything--stop painting, and be a regular female.... Well, you see, my milk is drying up! And I don’t feel at all like a mother--I still want to paint! So that’s why--”

“I see,” said Norman.

Yes, he thought bitterly, if she were a real mother, she’d be interested in comforting that crying baby, instead of explaining her psychology!

The spinsterish-looking nurse came in efficiently with the bottle.

“I think your visitor has been here long enough,” she said firmly.

“I’m going,” said Norman.

He gathered up his hat and stick. “I’ll see you again, if I may.”

“Yes, do,” said Isabel.

“Here, precious!” said the nurse, cooingly, “here’s your itsie bottsie-wottsie.”

Norman heard her crooning over his child as he went out the door.