How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Matron offered the history that Sister Mary Joseph Praise had been in severe pain, great spasms of it, and then the pains had suddenly ceased and she'd seemed almost lucid, talking…but now she had deteriorated again.
"My God," Hema said, knowing that in nature pains don't cease until a baby is out, "it sounds like a uterine rupture." It would explain all the blood on the floor. (1.7.33-34)
The first paragraph of this quotation gives the rundown of Sister Mary Joseph Praise's suffering, with Matron listing all of her symptoms. It's Hema who really makes the connection between the suffering and the baby. Everyone has been focused on saving Sister Mary Joseph Praise, but Hema knows that the nun's body is committed to giving birth.
Quote #8
This man she thought she knew well, seven years a colleague, now stood bent as if he'd been gutted.
That, she said to herself, is visceral pain. As angry as she'd been with him, the depth of his grief and his shame moved her. (1.10.37-38)
When Dr. Thomas Stone, who up until now has been mostly a rational guy, has finally been brought down by his emotions. Hema is furious with him not only for having gotten Sister Mary Joseph Praise pregnant and causing the situation, but also for having totally botched the operation. She can see that he is not a doctor in this moment; he's a suffering man.
Quote #9
"I tell you, I have never hurt like this." He grinned from ear to ear as if to say, A man is going along when out of the blue comes a banana peel, a cosmic joke that leaves you upended and clutching your belly. A wave of pain made him wince.
I can't possibly see you today. Beloved Sister has died […]. That was what Ghosh wanted to say, but in the face of such suffering he waited. (2.13.6-7)
When Mebratu comes into the hospital to get his stomach looked at, he acts very differently from someone like Sister Mary Joseph Praise in the face of his suffering. Whereas she is an angelic, stoic sufferer, he takes it as a joke. But the joke is a painful one: Mebratu is seeing things on the grand scale, as a "cosmic joke," which brings Ghosh out of his personal tragedy and forces him to perform his duties.