Genesis and Catastrophe ‘None of my other ones lived, Doctor.

’
by Roald Dahl The doctor stood beside the bed looking down
at the pale exhausted face of the young woman.
PART 1 He had never seen her before today. She and
‘Everything is normal,’ the doctor was saying. her husband were new people in the town. The
‘Just lie back and relax.’ His voice was miles innkeeper’s wife, who had come to assist in the
away in the distance and he seemed to be delivery, had told him that the husband worked
shouting at her. ‘You have a fine son.’ at the local customs-house on the border and
‘What?’ that the two of them had arrived quite suddenly
‘You have a fine son. You understand that, at the inn with one trunk and one suitcase
don’t you? A fine son. Did you hear him about three months ago. The husband was a
crying?’ drunkard, the innkeeper’s wife had said, an
‘Is he all right, Doctor?’ arrogant, overbearing bullying little drunkard,
‘Of course he is all right.’ but the young woman was gentle and religious.
‘Please let me see him.’ And she was very sad. She never smiled. In the
‘You’ll see him in a moment.’ few weeks that she had been here, the
‘You are certain he is all right?’ innkeeper’s wife had never once seen her smile.
‘I am quite certain.’ Also, there was a rumour that this was the
‘Is he still crying?’ husband’s third marriage, that one wife had
‘Try to rest. There is nothing to worry about.’ died and that the other had divorced him for
‘Why has he stopped crying, Doctor? What unsavoury reasons. But that was only a rumour.
happened?’ The doctor bent down and pulled the sheet up a
‘Don’t excite yourself, please. Everything is little higher over the patient’s chest. ‘You have
normal.’ nothing to worry about,’ he said gently. ‘This is a
‘I want to see him. Please let me see him.’ perfectly normal baby.’
‘Dear lady,’ the doctor said patting her hand. ‘That’s exactly what they told me about the
‘You have a fine strong healthy child. Don’t others. But I lost them all, Doctor. In the last
you believe me when I tell you that?’ eighteen months I have lost all three of my
‘What is the woman over there doing to him?’ children, so you mustn’t blame me for being
‘Your baby is being made to look pretty for anxious.’
you,’ the doctor said. ‘We are giving him a ‘Three?’
little wash, that is all. You must spare us a ‘This is my fourth… in four years.’ It is terrible
moment or two for that.’ when they are always ill and there is nothing
‘You swear he is all right?’ you can do to help them.’
‘I swear it. Now lie back and relax. Close your ‘I know.’
eyes. Go on, close your eyes. That’s right.
That’s better. Good girl.’ PART 3
‘My little girl was called Ida. She died a few
PART 2 days before Christmas. That is only four months
‘I have prayed and prayed that he will live, ago. I just wish you could have seen Ida,
Doctor.’ Doctor.’
‘Of course he will live. What are you talking ‘You have a new one now.’
about?’ ‘But Ida was so beautiful.’
‘The others didn’t.’ ‘Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘I know.’
‘What?’
‘Ida was two years old, Doctor… and she was and he looked into the cradle where Otto was
so beautiful I was never able to take my eyes lying and he said, “Why do all my children have
off her from the time I dressed her in the to be so small and weak?” ’
morning until she was safe in bed again at ‘I am sure he didn’t say that.’
night. I used to live in holy terror of ‘He put his head right into Otto’s cradle as
something happening to that child. Gustav though he were examining a tiny insect and he
had gone and my little Otto had also gone said, “All I am saying is why can’t they be better
and she was all I had left. Sometimes I used specimens? That’s all I’m saying.” And three
to get up in the night and creep over to the days after that, Otto was dead. We baptized
cradle and put my ear close to her mouth just him quickly on the third day and he died the
to make sure that she was breathing.’ … same evening. And then Gustav died. And then
‘When she died … I was already pregnant Ida died. All of them died, Doctor… and
again when that happened, Doctor. This new suddenly the whole house was empty…’
one was a good four months on its way when ‘Don’t think about it now.’
Ida died. “I don’t want it!” I shouted after the
funeral. “I won’t have it! I have buried PART 5
enough children!” And my husband… he was
strolling among the guests with a big glass of ‘Is this one so very small?’
beer in his hand… he turned around quickly ‘He is a normal child.’
and said, “I have good news.” Can you ‘But small?’
imagine that, Doctor? We have just buried ‘He is a little small, perhaps. But the small ones
our third child and he stands there with a are often a lot tougher than the big ones. Just
glass of beer in his hand and tells me that he imagine, Frau Hitler, this time next year he will
has good news. “Today I have been posted to be almost learning how to walk. Isn’t that a
Braunau,” he says, “so you can start packing lovely thought?’
at once. This will be a new start for you, She didn’t answer this.
Klara,” he says. “It will be a new place and ‘And two years from now he will probably be
you can have a new doctor…” ’ talking his head off and driving you crazy with
‘Please don’t talk any more.’ his chatter. Have you settled on a name for him
‘You are the new doctor, aren’t you, Doctor?’ yet?’
‘That’s right.’ ‘A name?’
‘And here we are in Braunau.’ ‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I think my husband
‘I am frightened, Doctor.’ said that if it was a boy we were going to call
‘Try not to be frightened.’ him Adolfus.’
‘What chance can the fourth one have now?’ ‘That means he would be called Adolf.’
‘You must stop thinking like that.’ ‘Yes. My husband likes Adolf because it has a
‘I can’t help it. I am certain there is something certain similarity to Alois. My husband is called
inherited that causes my children to die in this Alois.’
way. There must be.’ ‘Excellent.’
‘That is nonsense.’ [abridged from Genesis and Catastrophe, 1959, by Roald Dahl]

PART 4
‘Do you know what my husband said to me when
Otto was born, Doctor? He came into the room