"What is the interval now?" I asked.
"About a minute."
"Don't you want lunch?"
"I will have something pretty soon," he said.
"You must have something to eat, doctor," Catherine said. "I'm so sorry I go on so long.
Couldn't my husband give me the gas?"
"If you wish," the doctor said. "You turn it to the numeral two."
"I see," I said.
There was a marker on a dial that turned with a handle.
"I want it now," Catherine said.
She held the mask tight to her face.
I turned the dial to number two and when Catherine put down the mask I turned it off.
It was very good of the doctor to let me do something.
"Did you do it, darling?" Catherine asked.
She stroked my wrist.
"Sure."
"You're so lovely."
She was a little drunk from the gas.
"I will eat from a tray in the next room," the doctor said. "You can call me any moment."
While the time passed I watched him eat, then, after a while, I saw that he was lying down and smoking a cigarette.
Catherine was getting very tired.
"Do you think I'll ever have this baby?" she asked.
"Yes, of course you will."
"I try as hard as I can.
I push down but it goes away. There it comes.
Give it to me."
At two o'clock I went out and had lunch.
There were a few men in the cafй sitting with coffee and glasses of kirsch or marc on the tables.
I sat down at a table.
"Can I eat?" I asked the waiter.
"It is past time for lunch."
"Isn't there anything for all hours?"
"You can have choucroute."
"Give me choucroute and beer."
"A demi or a bock?"
"A light demi."
The waiter brought a dish of sauerkraut with a slice of ham over the top and a sausage buried in the hot wine-soaked cabbage.
I ate it and drank the beer.
I was very hungry.
I watched the people at the tables in the cafй.
At one table they were playing cards.
Two men at the table next me were talking and smoking.
The cafй was full of smoke.
The zinc bar, where I had breakfasted, had three people behind it now; the old man, a plump woman in a black dress who sat behind a counter and kept track of everything served to the tables, and a boy in an apron.
I wondered how many children the woman had and what it had been like.
When I was through with the choucroute I went back to the hospital.
The street was all clean now.
There were no refuse cans out.
The day was cloudy but the sun was trying to come through.
I rode upstairs in the elevator, stepped out and went down the hail to Catherine's room, where I had left my white gown.