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possible. As might be expected, some contact with him was necessary, but I resigned my assistantship and shunned any contact with him that wasn’t absolutely necessary for the attainment of my degree. Toward the end of our first year of marriage two things happened that brightened our world. I graduated from medical school and Camille gave birth to our first daughter; Ursula. From the very beginning Ursula was such a perfect child I often found it difficult to believe she was a product of the two of us. Not only was she even more of a beauty than her mother, but also she was precociously intelligent. By the time she reached fourteen, in a day and age when young women were supposed to modestly pretend not to know that animals were of different sexes, Ursula had mastered French and Latin, learned to recognize the major constellations and recite their myths, and had raised two litters of champion whippets. As for Camille, she was never truly happy, but the child helped. As the years wore on Camille hid her discontent behind a proper smile, and looked quite regal in her chinchilla toque and her muff with a tiny bunch of violets on it.
    It goes without saying I was pleased at Ursula’s passion for life, at her mettle and ardor. I realized she was far from being the prim and delicate granddaughter my father would have demanded, and this delighted me. At the same time I was filled with a subtle and yet terrible fear. When I searched myself I realized it was because of my experience with Camille. My intellect told me this was silly, but the feeling remained. No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, every once in a while the poison would leak into my veins and I would yield to a painful fear that the child conceived on the night of the Rubáiyát reading might somehow become “fallen” like her mother.
    Two years before Ursula’s coming-out party I accepted a position on the faculty of Redgewood University Hospital. For the first time in my life this afforded me the resources to undertake the medical research I had yearned to do for so long. During this period Camille also became pregnant with our second child and it looked as if everything was going right in our lives. It was in the winter of 1887 that Camille became ill. There was an influenza epidemic sweeping London, and when she showed the first symptoms I put her directly to bed. I was not worried at first, for Camille had always possessed a strong constitution. She could dance all night if I would let her and for the first few days those tiny hands gripped the edge of the bed defiantly. But then meningitis set in and my reserved concern became obsessed terror.
    Memory of those terrible days is foggy. When I try to recall them I see gauze-masked policemen in snow-flurried streets, pots of eucalyptus boiling on the stove, and Camille’s sweat-beaded face, motionless in the deep recesses of her pillow. Her fever raged. I went insane, cursing myself. It seemed the greatest irony that of all the occupations I could have chosen, I became a doctor and still was powerless to help her. At last the tiny hands went limp. It was only by performing a caesarean that I was able to save the child.
    There are no words to describe the pain I felt. I’m sure I would have lapsed into shock if it weren’t for the child. Because she was born two months prematurely it was necessary for me to keep a constant vigil over her and this, at least, kept me occupied. I named the baby Camille. She wasn’t as striking a child as her sister, but I cherished her nonetheless. The first indication that something was wrong came when she was about ten weeks old and had still not learned to focus her eyes properly. Initially I attributed this to her prematurity, but her failure to register even the faintest hint of recognition when I held a candle up to her eyes revealed she was completely blind. At the age of two it became evident she was severely mentally retarded and incapable of all but the simplest of