Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. John
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unforgettable night it had been granted to me to save two
lives, the life of a mother and the life of a child
from being murdered by her and her ignoble
accomplice. Suddenly another thought flashed
through my head. What had I done for these
two lives I had caused to live? What had I
done for this mother already abandoned by
another man in the hour she needed him
most?
“John! John!” she had called out under
the chloroform with a ring of despair. “John!
John!”
Had I done better than he? Had not I also
abandoned her in the hour she needed me most?
What agonies must she not have gone through
before she fell in the hands of this terrible woman
and this brutal colleague of mine, who would
have murdered her had it not been for me?
What agonies had she not gone through when
her awakening consciousness brought her back
to the ghastly reality of her surroundings. And
the half-asphyxiated child who had looked at
me with his blue eyes as he drew his first breath
with the life-giving air I had breathed into his
lungs, my lips to his lips! What had I done for
him? I had snatched him from the arms of
merciful death to throw him in the arms of
Madame Réquin! How many new-born babies
had not already sucked death from her enormous
bosom? What had she done with the blue-eyed
little boy? Was he among the eighty per cent
of the helpless little travellers in the ‘train des
nourrices’ who according to official statistics
succumbed during the first year of their life, or
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