Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
The doctor was not yet up; and a servant, who was busy cleaning the lamps, announced that his master had gone to bed late, and had given orders not to be waked, but would be up before long.
The lackey was polishing lamp-chimneys and seemed very much absorbed in this occupation. At first this absorption of the lackey in his lamp-chimneys, and his indifference to what was going on at home, made Levin indignant; but on reflection he realized that no one knew anything about it or was obliged to share in his feelings, and that consequently it was incumbent on him to be calm, reasonable, and firm, so as to break down that wall of indifference, and attain his end.
"I must not spoil matters by haste," said Levin to himself, feeling all the time a growing intensity of physical energy and concentration on what was before him.
Now that he knew that the doctor was not up, and had given orders not to be disturbed, Levin thought over several plans which presented themselves to him, and finally decided on the following: to send Kuzma with a note to another doctor, to go himself to the apothecary's for the laudanum, and, if on his return the doctor was not up, then either by bribery or by main force, if the man would not consent, to waken the doctor at any cost.At the apothecary's, the lean clerk, with the same indifference as the lackey cleaning the lamp-chimneys had shown, put a seal on the powders for the waiting coachman, and refused to deliver the opium. Striving not to get impatient or angry, and mentioning the doctor and midwife by name, and telling what it was needed for, Levin pleaded with him. The clerk asked his employer in German if it should be permitted, and, receiving a favorable reply from behind the screen, he proceeded to get out a bottle and a funnel, and slowly poured the liquid from it into a smaller vial, pasted on a label, sealed it, and in spite of Levin's urgency not to do so, was even going to wrap it up. This Levin could not endure; he resolutely snatched the vial out of the clerk's hands, and rushed through the great glass doors.
The doctor was still asleep; and, this time, the servant was shaking the rugs.
Levin, leisurely getting from his pocket a ten-ruble note, and dwelling on his words, but not wasting time, gave him the money, and explained that Piotr Dmitrievitch—how great and significant now seemed this hitherto unimportant Piotr Dmitrievitch—had promised him to be on hand at any time, so that he would certainly not be angry, and that, therefore, he must instantly awaken him.
The lackey consented, and went up-stairs and showed Levin into the reception-room.
Levin could hear in the next room how the doctor coughed, walked about, washed his face and hands, and made some remark.
Three minutes passed; it seemed to Levin that it was more than an hour. He could no longer contain himself.
"Piotr Dmitrievitch! Piotr Dmitrievitch!" he cried, through the opened door, in a beseeching voice. "For God's sake, forgive me. Let me come in just as you are. It has been more than two hours now."
"I'll be out immediately," replied a voice, and Levin to his surprise knew by the sound of the doctor's voice that he was smiling as he spoke."Just for one little minute."
"I'll be out immediately."
Two minutes more went by, while the doctor was putting on his boots, and another two minutes while he was brushing his hair and putting on his coat.
"Piotr Dmitrievitch," Levin was just saying once more; but at that instant the doctor came in, all ready dressed and with his hair brushed.
"These people have no hearts," thought Levin. "He can brush his hair, while we are dying."
"Good morning!" said the doctor, entering the reception-room serenely, and offering to shake hands. "Don't feel anxious. Well, how is it?"
Levin began at once a long and circumstantial account, filled with a crowd of useless details, and interrupted himself at every moment to urge the doctor to set out.
"Yes, but you must not be anxious. You see you don't know. I really am not needed yet; still I have promised, and I assure you I'll go. But there 's no hurry. Please sit down; won't you have some coffee?"
Levin looked at him, with a questioning look, asking with his eyes if he were not laughing at him; but the doctor was in serious earnest.
"I know, I know," added the physician, smiling; "I myself am a family man, and we husbands cut a sorry figure in such cases. The husband of one of my patients always, on such occasions, goes off to the stable."
"But do you think, Piotr Dmitrievitch,—do you think she'll get on well?"
"All the indications point to a fortunate issue."
"Won't you come at once?" said Levin, looking with angry eyes at the servant who was bringing the coffee.
"Within an hour."
"For God's sake!"
"Well, let me take my coffee."
The doctor proceeded to take his breakfast. Both were silent.
"It seems the Turks are beating. Did you read the telegram last evening?" asked the doctor, biting into a roll.
"No; but I'm going," said Levin. "Will you come in a quarter of an hour?"
"Make it a half."
"On your honor?"
When Levin got home, he found the princess at the door, and they went to Kitty's room together. The princess had tears in her eyes, and her hands trembled. When she saw Levin, she threw her arms round him, and kissed him.
"How is it, Lizavyeta Petrovna, dearie,"[1] said she, seizing the midwife's hand as she came to meet them with a radiant but solicitous face.
"It is going well," said she. "It would be well for her to lie down. Try to persuade her. She would find it easier."
Ever since Levin, on waking, had understood the situation, he had made up his mind, without indulging in anxious thought, or forebodings, crushing down all his anxieties and feelings, firmly, without worrying his wife, but, on the contrary, calming her and sustaining her courage, that he would endure what was before him. Not allowing himself even to think of what was coming or how it might end, judging by answers to his questions, how long it generally lasted. Levin in his imagination prepared to have patience and hold his heart in his hands for five hours, and this seemed to him within the limit of possibihty. But when he returned after his visit to the doctor's, and found Kitty still suffering, again he cried more and more frequently, "Lord, forgive us, and be merciful!" and he was afraid that he could not endure it, so terrible was it to him; thus an hour went by.
And after this another hour passed, and a second, and a third, and the five which he had set as the very ultimate limit of his endurance; and the situation was still the same, and still he was enduring the suspense, because there was nothing else to do except endure, thinking every moment that he had reached the last limit, and that his heart would burst with his agony. But the minutes still went by, hours and hours, and his feelings of agony and horror kept growing worse and more un endurable. All the ordinary conditions of life, without which it is impossible to take cognizance of anything, ceased to exist for Levin. He lost all consciousness of time. Now the minutes when she called him to her and he held her moist hand, which at one time would press his with extraordinary force, and again push him away, seemed hours; then again the hours would seem to him minutes.
He was surprised when Lizavyeta Petrovna asked for a light, and he learned that it was five o'clock in the evening. If they had told him that it was only ten o'clock in the morning, he would have been just as much surprised. Where the time had gone, what he had done, where he had been, he could not have told. Sometimes he saw Kitty's flushed face, now troubled and piteous, then calm and almost smiling, as she tried to reassure him. Then he saw the princess, flushed with anxiety, her gray curls in disorder, swallowing down her tears and biting her lips to keep from crying. He had also seen Dolly, and the doctor smoking great cigarettes, and Lizavyeta Petrovna, with a calm, serious, but reassuring look, and the old prince, pacing the dining-room with a frowning face. But how they came and went, and where they had been, he could not tell.
The princess had been with the doctor in Kitty's room, then in the library, where a well-set table had appeared; then she disappeared, and Dolly was in her place.
Then Levin remembered that they sent him somewhere; he moved a divan and a table zealously, thinking it was for her sake; and only when it was done did he learn that they were preparing his own bed for the night.
He was sent to the library to ask the doctor something; the doctor replied, and then began to speak of the disorders of the duma, or town-council. Then they sent him to the princess's bedchamber to get a holy image made of silver, with a golden trimming, from there; and, with the aid of an old chambermaid of the princess's, he climbed up to get it from the cabinet; and, in doing so, broke a little lamp, and the old woman consoled him for this accident, and encouraged him about his wife. And he had carried the image to Kitty, and placed it at. her head, carefully arranging it behind her pillow. But where, when, and why all this was done was more than he could tell.
Neither did he comprehend why the old princess took him by the hand, and, looking at him compassionately, begged him to calm himself; or why Dolly tried to persuade him to eat something, and led him from the room; or why even the doctor looked at him gravely and sympathetically, and offered him a pill.
He knew and felt conscious only that what was occurring was like that which had occurred the year before at the hotel of the government city, by the death-bed of his brother Nikolaï. That was grief, this was happiness. But that grief and this happiness were in the same way outside of the ordinary conditions of life; were in this peculiar life, as it were, the loopholes through which appeared something higher. And in exactly the same way, while the hard, painful event was accomplishing before him, in exactly the same way incomprehensible, his soul, at the contemplation of this loftiness, raised itself to a height which he had never before dreamed possible, and whither his reason could not follow.
"Lord, have mercy and aid us," he kept repeating, in spite of his long lack of practice, and yet feeling that he was addressing God with the same simplicity, the same confidence, as in his childhood and early youth. All this time he seemed to be leading two separate existences; one was away from Kitty, with the doctor smoking one fat cigarette after another, and knocking the ashes off against the rim of the unemptied ash-tray; or with Dolly and the old princess, who insisted on talking about dinner, politics, or the illness of Marya Petrovna, and with whom Levin suddenly, for an instant, would forget entirely what was taking place, and feel wide awake; and the other was in her presence, by her bedside, where his heart felt as if it would burst, and it almost did break with compassion, and where he did not cease to pray to God.
And every time when he would be aroused from momentary oblivion by a cry coming from her chamber, he would fall under the same strange delusion as had at the first moment taken possession of him; every time he heard the cry he would spring to his feet, hasten to her room, and on the way remember that he was not to blame, and would long to protect and help. And as he looked on her, he would see that there was no help to be given her; and again the pity would seize him, and he would pray, "Lord, forgive and help us!"
And in proportion as the time passed by, the stronger became the two conditions of mind,—he would be calmer at one moment, perfectly oblivious of her, while remaining out of her presence, and then again the more painful would become his sympathetic torments and the feeling of helplessness before them. He would spring to his feet, feel the impulse to escape somewhere, and hasten to her.
Sometimes when she would keep calling for him he would reproach her; but, seeing her submissive, smiling face, and hearing her words, "I have tired you out," he would reproach God; but, remembering what God was, he would beg for pardon and aid.
- ↑ Dushenka, little soul.