Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [3]
That afternoon I gave birth to my first rabbit, which was supposed to be my twelfth. The first thing was, Air. St. Andre rolled up his flowing cuff and put his hand into me, to be sure there was nothing there. He turned his face from me and stared at the wall. After I had moaned and shifted about awhile, Air. Howard walked me up and down the room. In the darkest corner he sat me down on a stool opposite his, and squeezed my legs between his own. Air. St. Andre called for a light, but my sister Toft cried out that it would hurt my eyes. All this time I kept up my panting and wailing. Air. Howard took my hands in his and squeezed them. He leaned his head against mine. Then he pushed me back all at once, as if the creatures were leaping inside me, so my stool almost toppled. Mr. St. Andre came closer, but Mr. Howard told him sharply to sit down again, so an unfamiliar face would not disturb the woman at her moment of crisis.
Now I could feel Mr. Howard reaching under my skirt in the shadows, and taking the limp rabbit from my pocket that dangled inside my hoop. He kept talking as if to soothe me while he nudged my legs apart and pushed the creature into me. I slid forward on my stool to help him; tears were falling down into my stays. It felt like cold cheese, till a little bone scraped me.
Then Mr. Howard had me walk about the room again, to bring on the birth. I kept my steps small, so it would not slide out. Mr. St. Andre's eyes were on me no matter which way I turned, and I felt like a tumbler who has used up all her tricks. I tried to remember what it was like, the times my real children were born. I leaned on the back of a chair, squalling and roaring and twisting my body from side to side. I told Mr. Howard I thought I might be ready, but he frowned and had me lay down on the bed for another while. My sister Toft wiped my face with vinegar.
The two doctors passed the time by means of jokes. When Mr. Howard told a good one about a sow I couldn't help but join in the laughing. Mr. St. Andre looked at me oddly and I shut my mouth, "Ah, women of Mary's station are hardy as beasts, sir," Mr. Howard told him. "They don't recall a hurt when it's over."
At that I began to roar again, as if the pains were doubled. The doctors ran to the bed. I pushed and pushed so my eyes bulged; I could feel the mangled rabbit beginning to slide out.
"There," said Mr. Howard, "can't you hear its little bones crack?"
The men listened, not meeting each other's eyes.
Mr. St. Andre shook back his three rows of lace to the elbow before he reached into me. The rabbit came out on the first tug. It lay in his hand, the skin hanging loose. We all stared at it. My sister Toft muttered something like a prayer. It was diy and bloodless. It didn't look much like a rabbit.
"In the cases of several of the others, also," Mr. Howard said very fast, "the pubic bone crushed the foetus and the skin was pulled off in its passage through the os uteri"
Mr. St. Andre's wig had slipped sideways. He adjusted it, and wrote everything down in his little memorandum book. Prompted by Mr. Howard, I told him how my sister Toft and I had been weeding in the fields one day, and I saw rabbits and had a great desire for them, and tried to catch them for my pot, but could not, and that night dreamed I had rabbits in my lap. (And indeed, by now, it was true, I did dream of rabbits most nights.)
"What is the pain like, Mrs. Toft?" he asked.
I thought back to the birth of my boy, two years past. "As if very coarse brown paper is tearing inside me, sir."
He kept feeling my pulse, looking at my tongue, even examining the water in my pot for stains. He did all this without ever saying if he believed a word of our story. He took three of the pickled rabbits away with him, to dissect in front of the King.
I heard Mr. Howard standing by the carriage, reminding Mr. St. Andre to tell the King what pains he, Mr. Howard, had taken with this poor woman, and how he did not debar her from eating anything she fancied, no matter what it cost. And it was true,