The Child

He learned to know the little hands and feet, the strange,
unseeing, golden-brown eyes, the mouth that opened only to cry,
or to suck, or to show a queer, toothless laugh. He could almost
understand even the dangling legs, which at first had created in
him a feeling of aversion. They could kick in their queer little
way, they had their own softness.

One evening, suddenly, he saw the tiny, living thing rolling
naked in the mother's lap, and he was sick, it was so utterly
helpless and vulnerable and extraneous; in a world of hard
surfaces and varying altitudes, it lay vulnerable and naked at
every point. Yet it was quite blithe. And yet, in its blind,
awful crying, was there not the blind, far-off terror of its own
vulnerable nakedness, the terror of being so utterly delivered
over, helpless at every point. He could not bear to hear it
crying. His heart strained and stood on guard against the whole
universe.

But he waited for the dread of these days to pass; he saw the
joy coming. He saw the lovely, creamy, cool little ear of the
baby, a bit of dark hair rubbed to a bronze floss, like
bronze-dust. And he waited, for the child to become his, to look
at him and answer him.

It had a separate being, but it was his own child. His flesh
and blood vibrated to it. He caught the baby to his breast with
his passionate, clapping laugh. And the infant knew him.

As the newly-opened, newly-dawned eyes looked at him, he
wanted them to perceive him, to recognize him. Then he was
verified. The child knew him, a queer contortion of laughter
came on its face for him. He caught it to his breast, clapping
with a triumphant laugh.