Chapter 114 Chapter 144

The three-week midwife job is coming to an end.Philip, who had nursed sixty-two women, was exhausted.On the last night of the night, it was nearly ten o'clock before he returned to the apartment.At this moment, he sincerely hoped that no one would call him out again that night.For ten days in a row, he didn't get a full night's sleep.He had just come back from a doctor's visit, and the patient's condition was truly dire.He was called by a heavyset, rough-looking, drunken man, and taken into a room in a foul-smelling yard.It was a small pavilion, more than half of which was occupied by a wooden bed covered by a dirty red curtain.The large ceiling above his head was so low that Philip could reach it with a raised hand.A forlorn candle was the only light in the room.Philip glanced at the ceiling by the bean-like candlelight, and saw that it was covered with dense bedbugs.The patient was a middle-aged, vulgar-looking woman.She has given birth to several stillborn babies in succession.Such things were not unknown to Philip.Here's the thing: her husband had been a soldier in India; and the laws imposed on India by the prissy British public allowed all sorts of troublesome diseases to spread uncontrollably and innocent people to suffer from them .Philip yawned, undressed, took a bath, and shook his clothes on the water, watching the little worms wriggling on the water.He was about to go to bed when there was a knock on the door, and then the hospital messenger stepped in and brought him a card.

"Damn you," said Philip, cursing. "You're the last person I want to see tonight. Who sent this card?" "I think it's from the woman's husband, sir. Shall I tell him to wait?" Philip looked at the address on the card and found that the street was familiar to him, so he looked up and told the messenger that he could find it himself.He hurriedly dressed, and five minutes later, with a black suitcase in his hand, he went out to the street.At this time, a man came to him, but because of the darkness, he couldn't see the appearance of that man clearly.The man said that he was the one who came to deliver the card.

"Sir, I think I'd better wait for you here," said the man, "our neighbors are rough there, and besides they don't know you." Philip laughed when he heard this. "Thank you for your kindness. Doctors, though, they'll recognize them. I've been through a lot of streets tougher than Weaver Street." Philip's words were true.The black leather bag in his hand was a pass that carried him safely through treacherous alleys and into stinking courtyards where even the police dared not step in.Once or twice Philip passed by a small group of people who looked at him curiously.He heard their chatter, and at last one of them said:

"This is the doctor from the hospital." One or two of them greeted him as he passed, "Good night, sir." "If you don't mind, sir, let's go faster," said the man who led him now. "They tell me time is short." "Then why are you so late?" Philip asked, picking up his pace. As he passed a street lamp Philip looked at the man. "You look very young," he said. "I'm only eighteen, sir." The man looked handsome, his face was clean and clean, not even a single hair could be seen, he looked like a child.Although he is not tall, he has a solid build.

"You are married so young," said Philip. "We have to." "How much money do you make?" "Sixteen shillings, sir." Sixteen shillings a week is tight enough to support a wife and children.The room the couple lived in showed that they were clinkingly poor.The room was medium in size but looked rather large as there was very little furniture in it.There was no carpet on the floor.There were no pictures posted on the walls, as most houses had photographs, or pictures cut out of Christmas papers in cheap frames.Presently the patient lay on the worst iron bed.Philip was surprised to see how young she was.

"My God, she can't be more than sixteen," said Philip to the women beside him.The woman came "to help the sick get rid of their pain once and for all." The patient's card stated that she was eighteen years old.However, when people are young, they always like to report an extra year or two.She is also very beautiful, which is rare among people like them, because the food they eat is not nutritious, the air they breathe is filthy, the living environment is very unhygienic, and their physical fitness is generally poor.She has a soft face, a pair of big eyes, and thick black hair, which is carefully combed into the hairstyle of a barker.Both of them looked very nervous.

"You'd better wait outside the door. Then you'll be there when I need you," Philip ordered the man. Philip saw him now more clearly, and was amazed at the boyishness of him, and felt that he should not wait anxiously at the door for the birth, but play in the street with the little ones. play.Hour after hour passed, but the baby wasn't born until two o'clock in the morning.It appears that everything is going well.At this point the husband was called into the house.Philip's heart skipped a beat when he saw him kiss his wife awkwardly and timidly.Philip packed up the equipment, and before leaving, he checked the woman's pulse again.

"Ouch!" he couldn't help but blurted out. Philip quickly glanced at the parturient, and immediately realized that something had happened.When encountering a critical illness, the senior midwife must be present.He was a qualified doctor, and the lot belonged to him.Philip wrote a hasty note, handed it to the man, and told him to hurry to the hospital.Philip told him to hurry, because his wife's condition was very critical.The man immediately left.Philip waited anxiously in his heart. He knew that the mother was bleeding profusely and her life was at stake.He was worried that she would die before his superiors arrived, so he tried everything to save her.He hoped fervently that the senior midwife had not been called elsewhere.At this moment, every minute seems particularly lengthy.The senior midwife arrived at last and asked Philip a few questions in a low voice while he examined the patient.Philip could see from the expression on his face that the patient was in a very serious condition.The senior midwife, named Chantler, was a taciturn man, tall, with a long nose, and his thin face was covered with deep wrinkles, which showed that he was not young.He shook his head again and again.

"It was incurable from the start. Where is her husband?" "I told him to wait on the stairs," Philip answered. "Go and call him in." Philipura opened the door and called the man in.The man sat on the first step of the dark staircase.This staircase leads to the next floor.He walked up to the iron bed. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Well, your wife is bleeding internally and there's no way to stop it." The senior midwife paused because he found it difficult to say the sad thing, but he suppressed his emotions and forced his voice to change. Gotta be rude. "She's dying."

The man stood silent and motionless, his eyes fixed on his wife.At this time, his wife was lying on the bed on her back, pale and unconscious.Then the maternity nurse cut in and said: "These two gentlemen have done their best, Harry, and I had a premonition from the first that something was wrong." "Shut up!" Chantler yelled. There were no curtains on the windows, and the night outside seemed to be fading.Although the dawn has not yet broken at this time, it is coming soon.Chantler tried his best to keep the life of the woman in labor, but life was still quietly leaving her, and not long after, she died suddenly.Her childlike husband stood at the end of the crappy iron bed, his hands on the bed frame.He was silent and his face was pale.Chantler glanced at him uneasily once or twice, worried that he might faint.At this moment, Harry's lips were white.The nurse was sobbing, but he ignored her.His eyes were full of bewilderment and doubt, and he stared fixedly at his wife.He reminded one of the look of a dog after it has been whipped for no reason.While Chantler and Philip were packing away, Chantler turned to the man and said:

"You'd better lie down. I think you're tired enough." "There is no place for me to sleep here, sir," replied the man.There is a kind of humility in his voice, which makes people feel pitiful. "Don't you know a single person in this house who can give you an impromptu sleep?" "I have no acquaintance here, sir." "They just moved in here last week," said the nurse, "and haven't gotten to know anyone yet." Chantler paused in embarrassment, then walked up to the man and said: "I'm very saddened by this incident." After all, he stretched out his hand.Harry's eyes instinctively swept his hand to see if it was clean, and then he took the hand that Chantler extended. "Thank you, sir." Philip shook hands with him too.Chantler ordered the nurse to go to the hospital in the morning to get the death certificate.The two of them left the house and walked forward in silence. "In the beginning, it was a bit uncomfortable to see this kind of thing, wasn't it?" Chantler finally asked. "It's a little hard," Philip answered. "If you want, I'll tell the messenger not to call you again tonight." "By eight o'clock in the morning, my business will be over anyway." "How many parturients have you nursed in total?" "Sixty-three." "Okay. Then you can get your certificate of competency." The two of them came to the gate of St. Luke's Hospital.Chantler turned in to see if anyone was waiting for him, and Philip walked on.The day before had been very hot, and even in the wee hours of the morning, the air was still warm.The street was silent.Philip didn't feel like going to sleep at all.His work is over anyway, so there is no need to rush back to rest.He strolled forward, and the quiet before dawn and the fresh air made him feel refreshed.He wanted to go straight ahead and stand on the bridge to watch the sunrise over the river.A policeman around the corner asks him good morning.He knew who Philip was from the black suitcase. "It's the middle of the night, sir," said the policeman pleasantly. Philip nodded to him and walked forward.He leaned against the railing, staring at the morning sky.At this moment, this big city is like a dead city.There was no cloud in the sky, but the stars were fading as dawn approached.A layer of tranquil mist floats on the surface of the river, and the high-rise buildings on the north bank are like palaces on the fairy island.A fleet of barges is moored in midstream.Everything around is cast a mysterious violet.For some reason, this situation is disturbing and awe-inspiring.But in an instant, everything gradually became pale, gray and cold.Then a red sun leaped across the water, and a beam of golden light pierced the sky, turning it iridescent.The dead girl, pale and pale, stretched out on the bed, and the boy standing at the head of the bed like a stray dog, kept coming to Philip's mind, and he could not get them out of his mind. Erase before his own eyes.The sight of the emptiness of that squalid room made the sorrow deeper and more tearful.It was cruel that a foolish chance killed the girl in the prime of her life.But, while he was thus talking to himself, Philip turned and remembered what a fate awaited her, nothing but begetting children, struggling with poverty, and turning the beauty of youth into hard toil. ruined, finally lost, and became a slovenly old lady--at this moment, Philip seemed to see that soft face becoming thin and pale, the hair thinning, and the slender pair of eyes. Plain hands, rough and unsightly due to work, and finally become like the claws of an old beast--then, when her man is in the prime of his life, it is difficult to find a job, the wages are the lowest, and he is forced to work hard, and in the end he must end up empty-handed She may be very capable and industrious and frugal, but this is of no avail. In the end, she either enters the poor and lives for the rest of her life, or lives on the leftovers of her children.Who would feel sorry for her when she died, since life had so little to offer her? But pity means nothing.Phillip thought it was not pity these people needed.They have no mercy on themselves.They accept their fate as very natural.Or else, oh, my God!Otherwise, they would have swarmed across the Thames to the strong, imposing north bank; and they would have set fire and looted everywhere.At this time, it was dawn, the light was soft and bleak, and the mist was light, covering everything with a layer of elegant color.The surface of the Thames was shimmering, sometimes bluish gray, sometimes rose red, sometimes emerald green: bluish gray as lustrous as mother-of-pearl; green as the stamen of a yellow rose.Surrey Side's wharves and warehouses are crammed together, and it's a sight to behold, though disorganized.Facing this elegant and beautiful scenery, Philip's heart beat violently.He was completely intoxicated by the beauty of the world.Other than that, everything seems trivial.