full of life; the head unhurt dropping back with its weight of hair, and the
curling tresses about the temples, and the exquisite face, with red, half-
opened mouth, the strange, fixed expression, piteous on the lips and awful
in the still open eyes, that seemed to utter that fearful phrase—that he
would be sorry for it—that she had said when they were quarreling.
And he tried to think of her as she was when he met her the first time, at
a railway station too, mysterious, exquisite, loving, seeking and giving
happiness, and not cruelly revengeful as he remembered her on that last
moment. He tried to recall his best moments with her, but those moments
were poisoned forever. He could only think of her as triumphant, successful
in her menace of a wholly useless remorse never to be effaced. He lost all
consciousness of toothache, and his face worked with sobs.
Passing twice up and down beside the baggage in silence and regaining
his self-possession, he addressed Sergey Ivanovitch calmly:
“You have had no telegrams since yesterday’s? Yes, driven back for a
third time, but a decisive engagement expected for tomorrow.”
And after talking a little more of King Milan’s proclamation, and the
immense effect it might have, they parted, going to their carriages on
hearing the second bell.
Chapter 6
Sergey Ivanovitch had not telegraphed to his brother to send to meet him,
as he did not know when he should be able to leave Moscow. Levin was not
at home when Katavasov and Sergey Ivanovitch in a fly hired at the station
drove up to the steps of the Pokrovskoe house, as black as Moors from the
dust of the road. Kitty, sitting on the balcony with her father and sister,
recognized her brother-in-law, and ran down to meet him.
“What a shame not to have let us know,” she said, giving her hand to
Sergey Ivanovitch, and putting her forehead up for him to kiss.
“We drove here capitally, and have not put you out,” answered Sergey
Ivanovitch. “I’m so dirty. I’m afraid to touch you. I’ve been so busy, I
didn’t know when I should be able to tear myself away. And so you’re still
as ever enjoying your peaceful, quiet happiness,” he said, smiling, “out of
the reach of the current in your peaceful backwater. Here’s our friend
Fyodor Vassilievitch who has succeeded in getting here at last.”
“But I’m not a negro, I shall look like a human being when I wash,” said
Katavasov in his jesting fashion, and he shook hands and smiled, his teeth
flashing white in his black face.
“Kostya will be delighted. He has gone to his settlement. It’s time he
should be home.”
“Busy as ever with his farming. It really is a peaceful backwater,” said
Katavasov; “while we in town think of nothing but the Servian war. Well,
how does our friend look at it? He’s sure not to think like other people.”
“Oh, I don’t know, like everybody else,” Kitty answered, a little
embarrassed, looking round at Sergey Ivanovitch. “I’ll send to fetch him.
Papa’s staying with us. He’s only just come home from abroad.”
And making arrangements to send for Levin and for the guests to wash,
one in his room and the other in what had been Dolly’s, and giving orders
for their luncheon, Kitty ran out onto the balcony, enjoying the freedom,
and rapidity of movement, of which she had been deprived during the
months of her pregnancy.
“It’s Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov, a professor,” she said.
“Oh, that’s a bore in this heat,” said the prince.
“No, papa, he’s very nice, and Kostya’s very fond of him,” Kitty said,
with a deprecating smile, noticing the irony on her father’s face.
“Oh, I didn’t say anything.”
“You go to them, darling,” said Kitty to her sister, “and entertain them.
They saw Stiva at the station; he was quite well. And I must run to Mitya.
As ill-luck would have it, I haven’t fed him since tea. He’s awake now, and
sure to be screaming.” And feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to the
nursery.
This was not a mere guess; her connection with the child was still so
close, that she could gauge by the flow of her milk his need of food, and
knew for certain he was hungry.
She knew he was crying before she reached the nursery. And he was
indeed crying. She heard him and hastened. But the faster she went, the
louder he screamed. It was a fine healthy scream, hungry and impatient.
“Has he been screaming long, nurse, very long?” said Kitty hurriedly,
seating herself on a chair, and preparing to give the baby the breast. “But
give me him quickly. Oh, nurse, how tiresome you are! There, tie the cap
afterwards, do!”
The baby’s greedy scream was passing into sobs.
“But you can’t manage so, ma’am,” said Agafea Mihalovna, who was
almost always to be found in the nursery. “He must be put straight. A-oo! a-
oo!” she chanted over him, paying no attention to the mother.
The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agafea Mihalovna followed
him with a face dissolving with tenderness.
“He knows me, he knows me. In God’s faith, Katerina Alexandrovna,
ma’am, he knew me!” Agafea Mihalovna cried above the baby’s screams.
But Kitty did not hear her words. Her impatience kept growing, like the
baby’s.
Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby could not get
hold of the breast right, and was furious.
At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vain sucking, things
went right, and mother and child felt simultaneously soothed, and both
subsided into calm.
“But poor darling, he’s all in perspiration!” said Kitty in a whisper,
touching the baby.
“What makes you think he knows you?” she added, with a sidelong
glance at the baby’s eyes, that peered roguishly, as she fancied, from under
his cap, at his rhythmically puffing cheeks, and the little red-palmed hand
he was waving.
“Impossible! If he knew anyone, he would have known me,” said Kitty,
in response to Agafea Mihalovna’s statement, and she smiled.
She smiled because, though she said he could not know her, in her heart
she was sure that he knew not merely Agafea Mihalovna, but that he knew
and understood everything, and knew and understood a great deal too that
no one else knew, and that she, his mother, had learned and come to
understand only through him. To Agafea Mihalovna, to the nurse, to his
grandfather, to his father even, Mitya was a living being, requiring only
material care, but for his mother he had long been a morta being, with
whom there had been a whole series of spiritual relations already.
