“I cannot work because I am so full of him—the longing for him paralyses me. In the night I cuddle the pillow in my arms and sob for my baby-boy. I call him and talk to him when I am alone. I should have painted him, to have a picture of him at every age. He would have been a year old now, would have had teeth and been able to take hold of things, to stand up, and perhaps to walk a little. Every month, every day I think of him—how he would have grown and what he would be like. When I see a woman with a _bambino_ on her arm, or the children in the street, I always think of him and how he would look at their age.” She stopped talking for a moment. “I did not think you felt it like that, Jenny,” said Heggen gently. “It was sad for you, of course—I quite understood that—but I thought, on the whole, it was better he was taken. If I had known you were so distressed about it, I should have come to see you.” She did not answer, but went on in the same strain: “And he died—such a tiny, tiny little thing. It is only selfishness on my part to grudge him death before he had begun to feel and to understand. He could only look at the light and cry when he was hungry or wanted to be changed; he did not know me even—not really, anyhow. Some vague glimpses of reason had possibly begun to awaken in his little head, but, think of it, he never knew that I was his mother. “Never a name had he, poor darling, only mother’s baby-boy, and I have nothing to remember him by, except just material things.” She lifted her hands as if holding the child to her heart, then let them fall empty and lifeless on the table. “I remember so distinctly my impression when I first touched him, felt his skin against mine. It was so soft, a little damp—the air had scarcely touched it yet, you see. People think a newborn child is not nice to feel, and perhaps it is so when it is not your own flesh and blood. And his eyes—they were no special colour, only dark, but I think they would have been grey-blue. A baby’s eyes are so strange—almost mysterious. And his tiny head was so pretty, when he was feeding and pressing his little nose against me. I could see the pulse beating and the thin, downy hair; he had quite a lot of it—and dark—when he was born. “Oh, that little body of his! I can never think of anything else—I can feel it lying in my hands. He was so round and fat, and every bit of him was so pretty—my own sweet little boy! “But he died! I was looking forward so much to all that was going to happen that it seems to me now I did not pay enough attention to things when I had him, or kissed him or looked at him enough, though I did nothing else in those weeks.