Then, without evincing any repugnance, Pauline pressed her mouth to its tiny, rigid lips, and drawing long, slow breaths she strove to adapt the force of her lungs to the capacity of those little compressed organs into which the air had been unable to make its way. She was obliged to stop every now and then, when her breath grew exhausted; but, after inhaling a fresh supply, she turned to her task again. Her blood mounted to her head, and her ears began to buzz; she even became a little giddy. Nevertheless she still persevered, striving to inflate the baby's lungs for more than half an hour, without being encouraged by the least result. She vainly tried to make the ribs play by pressing them very gently with her fingers. But nothing seemed to do the least good, and anyone else would have abandoned in despair this apparently impossible resurrection. Pauline, however, brought maternal perseverance to her task, the obstinate insistence of a mother who is determined that her child shall live, and at last she felt that the poor wee body was stirring, that its tiny lips moved slightly beneath her own. For nearly an hour she had remained alone in that room, absorbed in the anguish of that struggle with death, and forgetful of all else. That faint sign of life, that transitory tremor of the little lips, filled her with fresh courage. She had recourse to friction again, and every other minute she resumed her attempt at inflation, employing the two processes alternately without any regard for her own exhaustion. She felt a growing craving to conquer and produce life. For a moment she feared she had been mistaken, for it again seemed that her lips were only pressing lifeless ones. But she became conscious of another rapid contraction. Little by little the air was forcing its way into the child's lungs; she could feel it being sucked from her and returned, and she even fancied she could detect the little heart beginning to beat. Her mouth never left the tiny lips; she shared her life with that little creature; they had only one breath between them in that wonderful resurrection, a slow, continuous exchange of breath going from one to the other as if they had a common soul. Pauline's lips were soiled, for the child had scarcely been cleansed, but her joy at having saved it prevented any feeling of disgust. She began to inhale a warm pungency of life, which intoxicated her; and when, at last, the baby broke out into a feeble, plaintive wail, she fell back from the chair on to the floor, stirred to the depths of her being.