Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

7. CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)

The nurse seemed to be there, somehow, miraculously. And the morning came. And in the kitchen Annie went about her work, a little more quietly than usual. And yesterday seemed far away. It was afternoon; it was twilight. Doctor Hertz had been there for hours. The last time he brought another doctor with him--Thorn. Mrs. Brandeis was not talking now. But she was breathing. It filled the room, that breathing; it filled the house. Fanny took her mother's hand, that hand with the work-hardened palm and the broken nails. It was very cold. She looked down at it. The nails were blue. She began to rub it. She looked up into the faces of the two men. She picked up the other hand--snatched at it. "Look here!" she said. "Look here!" And then she stood up. The vague, clammy thing that had been wound about her heart suddenly relaxed. And at that something icy hot rushed all over her body and shook her. She came around to the foot of the bed, and gripped it with her two hands. Her chin was thrust forward, and her eyes were bright and staring. She looked very much like her mother, just then. It was a fighting face. A desperate face.

"Look here," she began, and was surprised to find that she was only whispering. She wet her lips and smiled, and tried again, forming the words carefully with her lips. "Look here. She's dying--isn't she? Isn't she! She's dying, isn't she?"

Doctor Hertz pursed his lips. The nurse came over to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. Fanny shook her off.

"Answer me. I've got a right to know. Look at this!" She reached forward and picked up that inert, cold, strangely shriveled blue hand again.

"My dear child--I'm afraid so."

There came from Fanny's throat a moan that began high, and poignant, and quavering, and ended in a shiver that seemed to die in her heart. The room was still again, except for the breathing, and even that was less raucous.