第304章

`What is happening with her now? Is she asleep? How is she? What is she thinking of? Is he crying - my son Dmitrii?' 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 there 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, realizing his weakness.

`I have had a nap, Kostia!' 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 array ourselves 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 toward 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 even 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 arrayed and transformed into a solid 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 she would sit up.

`What are you thinking of, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn't move like that! Wait a minute. I'll give him to you. Here we're showing papa what a fine fellow we are!'

And Lizaveta Petrovna, with one hand supporting the wobbling head, lifted up on the other arm the strange, limp, red creature, whose head was lost in its swaddling clothes. But it had a nose, too, and slanting eyes, and smacking lips.

`A splendid baby!' said Lizaveta Petrovna.

Levin sighed with mortification. This splendid baby excited in him no feeling but disgust and compassion. It was not at all the feeling he had looked forward to.

He turned away while Lizaveta Petrovna put the baby to the unaccustomed breast.

Suddenly laughter made him look round. The baby had taken the breast.

`Come that's enough, that's enough!' said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty would not let the baby go. He fell asleep in her arms.

`Look, now,' said Kitty, turning the baby so that he could see it. The aged-looking little face suddenly puckered up still more, and the baby sneezed.

Smiling, hardly able to restrain his tears, Levin kissed his wife and went out of the dark room.

What he felt toward this little creature was utterly unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyous in the feeling;on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the consciousness of a new sphere of liability to pain. And this sense was so painful at first, the apprehension lest this helpless creature should suffer was so intense, that it prevented him from noticing the strange thrill of senseless joy and even pride that he had felt when the baby had sneezed.

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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 7, Chapter 17[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 17 Stepan Arkadyevich's affairs were in a very bad way.

The money for two-thirds of the forest had all been spent already, and he had borrowed from the merchant in advance at ten per cent discount almost all the remaining third. The merchant would not give more, especially as Darya Alexandrovna, for the first time that winter insisting on her right to her own property, had refused to sign the receipt for the payment of the last third of the forest. All his salary went on household expenses and in payment of petty debts that could not be put off. There was positively no money.