Wakened up from chloroform by the doctor, Lia realized she had given birth to a monster. The baby was a hunchback. She had been waiting for Prince Charming for nine months, while feeding a crocodile with a broken spine in her womb, instead."This can't be true, doctor!" she cried out in despair.In his linen diapers with rich embroidery, the unfortunate baby looked thoughtful, like an old man."It's a boy, just as you wanted him to be!" said the doctor, striving with a fake smile to get rid of the complicity for which the naïve despair of the young wife made him responsible. "It's the second hunchback that I have midwived this year," he said to himself, seized by boredom.The new-born baby had an oblong head and no chin, and he resembled a fish. As hairy as a polecat, the fur reached his eyebrows, and its forehead was two centimeters wide. The only living thing about its crippled, withered small being was the deep, scintillating gaze."These are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, said the doctor. And I have midwived almost three hundred babies."
by Tudor Arghezi (1880-1967)
