He picked up the telephone book at last, and finding the hospital
list in the directory began his monotonous calling of numbers, and
still the revolt was in his mind. Even life lay through the gates
of death; daily and hourly women everywhere laid down their lives
that some new soul be born. But the revulsion came with that, a
return to something nearer the normal. Daily and hourly women
lived, having brought to pass the miracle of life.
At half-past four he located Edith at the Memorial, and learned
that her child had been born dead, but that she was doing well. He
was suddenly exhausted; he sat down on a stool before the counter,
and with his arms across it and his head on them, fell almost
instantly asleep. When he waked it was almost seven and the
intermittent sounds of early morning came through the closed doors,
as though the city stirred but had not wakened.
He went to the door and opened it, looking out. He had been wrong
before. Death was a beginning and not an end; it was the morning
of the spirit. Tired bodies lay down to sleep and their souls
wakened to the morning, rested; the first fruits of them that slept.
From the chimneys of the houses nearby small spirals of smoke began
to ascend, definite promise of food and morning cheer behind the
closed doors, where the milk bottles stood like small white sentinels
and the morning paper was bent over the knob.
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