Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/236

 Miss Harris' white collar, and sought to tear it from its moorings.

"You must lie quiet," Miss Harris whispered.

"Oh, I can't—I can't." A pain sharp as a blade caught her in the back. It was like a sudden burst of flame that illuminates what it destroys. The room did not blur before Dot's vision. Instead there was a sharp clarity in her gaze. She noticed a stain on Miss Lambert's sleeve, the sunburn on Dr. Stewart's forehead. A cabinet with glass shelves upon which lay a chilling glitter of instruments was for the first time noticed. The cabinet seemed to cover the whole wall. A monster with sharp, silver teeth. The pain bore down upon her, pressed the breath out of her. Her body trembled with agony.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

She gazed timidly at Dr. Stewart and Miss Lambert. It had not been a prayer. It had been profanity.

"Pardon me," she said.

But still they did not notice.

"When you get another pain," said Dr. Stewart, "you must bear down upon it. Push."

Dot nodded. She had to do it, had to obey, but it doubled the pain, trebled it.

"I can't—I can't."

"You must, dear," Miss Lambert said. "You will have it over sooner if you do."

Dot bore down upon the pains. With tears and perspiration running down her cheeks, she pressed against the enemy. Knives which she must again and again hurl herself upon. The nurses were not with her any more. They had scattered to other parts of the room. They seemed now to be devils heightening her torture. They ran about fussing over instruments, nickel cauldrons, basins, and lights. Boiling, scraping, sharpening, burning, whispering between themselves.