“How long does this last?” Thyrsis asked, his voice trembling. The doctor made a motion to him to be silent--evidently he did not wish Corydon to hear the answer to that question.
Section 9. For the girl’s soul was rising within her; perhaps from the deeps of things there came comfort to her, from the everlasting, universal motherhood of life. Nature must have told her that this at least was pain to some purpose; something was being accomplished. And she shut her jaws together again, and closed with it--driving, driving, with all the power of her being. A feeling of awe stole over Thyrsis as he watched her--a feeling the like of which he had never known in his life before. She was a creature consecrated, made holy by suffering; she was the sacredness of life incarnate, a thing godlike, beyond earth. It came as a revelation, changing the whole aspect of life to him. It was hard to realize--that woman, woman who endured this, was the same being that he had met in the world all his life--laughing and talking, careless and commonplace. This--this was woman’s _fate_! It was the thing for which woman was made, and the lowest, meanest of them might have to bear it! He swore vows of reverence and knighthood; he fell upon his knees before her, weeping, his soul white-hot with awe. Ah what should he do that he might be worthy to live upon the earth with a woman?
And this was no mere fine emotion; there was no room for imagination in it--the reality exceeded all imagination. Overwhelming it was, furious, relentless; his thoughts strove to roam, but it seized him by the hair and dragged him back. Here--_here!_
She was wrung and shaken with her agony, her eyes shut, her face uplifted, her muscles turned to stone. And the minutes dragged out into hours--there was no end to it--there was no end to it! There was no meaning--it was only naked, staring terror. It beat him up again and again; he would sink back exhausted, thinking that he could feel no more; but it dragged him up once more--to agony without respite! The caverns of horror were rent open; they split before his eyes--deeper, deeper--in vistas and abysses from which he shrunk appalled. Here dwelt the furies, despair and madness--here dwelt the demon-forces of being, grisly phantoms which come not into the light of day. Their hands were upon him, their claws were in his flesh; and over their chasms he shuddered--he scented the smoke of that seething pit of life, whose top the centuries have sealed, and into which no mortal thing may gaze and live.