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after the wedding; she almost crept near Henry before that time. But she wanted so to wait until after the ceremony, to show him that she had conquered her old sinful flesh. And he had not tempted her—he was not that kind of raw and selfish man. And in this way he had helped her endure and preserve her new body innocent until the bridal ceremony was over.
    When at last the time had come to pull on the bridal shift she had felt like a virgin. She couldn’t quite explain it, but she almost felt like a girl going to woman for the first time when at last they got down to business. And in her new body, rebaptized and all, she really was a virgin, untouched by men. She was still in her best years, and it had felt so wonderful to be able to use her body for the purpose for which it had been created, now that God had joined them together.
    Henry himself had had hardly any experience at all when they married. He had slept a few times with ordinary waterfront whores in New York but that had been fifteen years ago. So she had had to instruct him and guide him. He had really had so little experience that he could be called a beginner at bed play.
    “Jackson pushed in too fast in the beginning, that was the trouble . . .”
    Before Kristina had time even to suspect what Mrs. Jackson was describing, with this last sentence, Ulrika had jumped up; she had just dunked a second butter cake in her coffee and had barely swallowed a bite of it when she suddenly groaned loudly and rushed to the kitchen, her hands on her stomach.
    What was the matter with Ulrika? But before Kristina could ask, her friend had returned to the living room. She dried her mouth with the back of her hand, jolly and happy as ever:
    “Excuse me for running out!”
    “Did you get something in your windpipe?”
    “No, it was only my ‘priest.’ He’s on his way now.”
    Kristina looked out through the window but could see no one outside. “Is Mr. Jackson coming?” she asked.
    “No, not Henry. I meant the priest I’m going to bring into the world. I went out to reek a little.”
    “Reek a little?”
    Ulrika sat down again at the coffee table: “I’m in the family way, you see.”
    Ulrika used the English words and it was a few moments before Kristina understood. Ulrika went on to explain. She had decided long ago that her first son should be a minister, the same as his father. With a son in the pulpit she would be redeemed in the eyes of Dean Brusander at home, he who had excluded her from his congregation.
    “I haven’t had my regulars for two months and I puke like a she-cat. I’m pregnant.”
    In Sweden when a woman was pregnant she was said to be on the thick, and it sounded as if she were afflicted with a shameful disease, said Ulrika. That was why she used the English words for her condition, it sounded fine and elegant in some way. Furthermore, this was the first time she was married to the father of a child of hers, and it seemed strange to her, but not unpleasant.
    “I wish you all luck!” said Kristina. “I’ll carry your first-born to baptism as you carried my last-born.”
    “I’m sorry, but he won’t be baptized until he is grown. We intend to immerse our brats in our own religion.”
    That was true, the Baptists did not christen their babies. Kristina was apt to overlook the fact that Ulrika had embraced a new religion.
    “You’re tardy with your pregnancy,” said Kristina. “You’ve been married two years now.”
    “Yes, it’s taken so long I was getting worried. I myself have borne four brats in my life but I was beginning to wonder if Henry was useless. Having born the others outside wedlock, I’m anxious to have a few real ones too.”
    Kristina sighed; the childbed Ulrika impatiently looked forward to she herself feared. Each month she trembled lest her period stop. And her apprehension had increased since Dan stopped suckling; she thought she had noticed that suckling was an obstacle.
    Ulrika added that she had already