Chapter XVI
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 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 towards
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 sneezed.