before him, he would have been surprised at nothing. But now, coming back
to the world of reality, he had to make great mental efforts to take in that
she was alive and well, and that the creature squalling so desperately was
his son. Kitty was alive, her agony was over. And he was unutterably happy.
That he understood; he was completely happy in it. But the baby? Whence,
why, who was he?… He could not get used to the idea. It seemed to him
something extraneous, superfluous, to which he could not accustom
himself.
Chapter 16
At ten o’clock the old prince, Sergey Ivanovitch, and Stepan
Arkadyevitch were sitting at Levin’s. Having inquired after Kitty, they had
dropped into conversation upon other subjects. Levin heard them, and
unconsciously, as they talked, going over the past, over what had been up to
that morning, he thought of himself as he had been yesterday till that point.
It was as though a hundred years had passed since then. He felt himself
exalted to unattainable heights, from which he studiously lowered himself
so as not to wound the people he was talking to. He talked, and was all the
time thinking of his wife, of her condition now, of his son, in whose
existence he tried to school himself into believing. The whole world of
woman, which had taken for him since his marriage a new value he had
never suspected before, was now so exalted that he could not take it in in
his imagination. He heard them talk of yesterday’s dinner at the club, and
thought: “What is happening with her now? Is she asleep? How is she?
What is she thinking of? Is he crying, my son Dmitri?” And in the middle of
the conversation, in the middle of a sentence, he jumped up and went out of
the room.
“Send me word if I can see her,” said the prince.
“Very well, in a minute,” answered Levin, and without stopping, he went
to her room.
She was not asleep, she was talking gently with her mother, making plans
about the christening.
Carefully set to rights, with hair well-brushed, in a smart little cap with
some blue in it, her arms out on the quilt, she was lying on her back.
Meeting his eyes, her eyes drew him to her. Her face, bright before,
brightened still more as he drew near her. There was the same change in it
from earthly to unearthly that is seen in the face of the dead. But then it
means farewell, here it meant welcome. Again a rush of emotion, such as he
had felt at the moment of the child’s birth, flooded his heart. She took his
hand and asked him if he had slept. He could not answer, and turned away,
struggling with his weakness.
“I have had a nap, Kostya!” she said to him; “and I am so comfortable
now.”
She looked at him, but suddenly her expression changed.
“Give him to me,” she said, hearing the baby’s cry. “Give him to me,
Lizaveta Petrovna, and he shall look at him.”
“To be sure, his papa shall look at him,” said Lizaveta Petrovna, getting
up and bringing something red, and queer, and wriggling. “Wait a minute,
we’ll make him tidy first,” and Lizaveta Petrovna laid the red wobbling
thing on the bed, began untrussing and trussing up the baby, lifting it up and
turning it over with one finger and powdering it with something.
Levin, looking at the tiny, pitiful creature, made strenuous efforts to
discover in his heart some traces of fatherly feeling for it. He felt nothing
towards it but disgust. But when it was undressed and he caught a glimpse
of wee, wee, little hands, little feet, saffron-colored, with little toes, too, and
positively with a little big toe different from the rest, and when he saw
Lizaveta Petrovna closing the wide-open little hands, as though they were
soft springs, and putting them into linen garments, such pity for the little
creature came upon him, and such terror that she would hurt it, that he held
her hand back.
Lizaveta Petrovna laughed.
“Don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened!”
When the baby had been put to rights and transformed into a firm doll,
Lizaveta Petrovna dandled it as though proud of her handiwork, and stood a
little away so that Levin might see his son in all his glory.
Kitty looked sideways in the same direction, never taking her eyes off the
baby. “Give him to me! give him to me!” she said, and even made as though
