Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
The old Prince Sergyeï Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch met at Levin's the next morning, about ten o'clock, and after they talked about the little mother, they began to converse about irrelevant topics. Levin listened to them, and involuntarily remembering what had taken place, what had been going on that morning, he also remembered what he himself had been but a few hours before.
It was as if a hundred years had passed since then.He felt that he was on some unattainable height from which he endeavored to descend to their level, that he might not offend those with whom he was talking. While talking about indifferent things, he was thinking of his wife, of the state of her health, and of his son, to the idea of whose existence he was trying to accustom himself. The whole world of womanhood, which had taken on a new and incomprehensible significance to him, even after his marriage, occupied such a lofty place, that he could not begin to realize it. He heard the men talking about their dinner at the club; but he was thinking, "What is she doing now? Is she asleep? How is she? What is in her mind? Is the son Dmitri crying?" And, in the midst of the conversation, in the midst of a sentence, he sprang up, and left the room.
"Send word down if I may see her," said the old prince.
"Very good.... I will at once," replied Levin, and without pausing he went to her room.
She was not asleep, but was softly talking with her mother, making plans about the christening.
With clean clothes and with her hair brushed, she lay comfortably arranged in bed, with her hands resting on the counterpane, and a mob-cap with blue ribbons on her head, and as her eyes met his she drew him to her by their look. Her face lighted up more and more brightly as he approached her. There was in it that change from the earthly to the superhuman calm which one sees in death, but, instead of a farewell, she welcomed him to a new life. Again an emotion, like that which he had felt during her agony, seized his heart. She took his hand, and asked him if he had slept.
He could not answer, but turned his head away, yielding to his weakness.
"I have had a nap, Kostia," she said; "and I feel so well now."
She looked at him, and suddenly the expression of her face changed. She heard her baby cry.
"Give him to me, Lizavyeta Petrovna, and let me show him to his father," she said."There, now, let papa look," said Lizavyeta Petrovna, taking up and exhibiting something red, strange, and wobbling. "Wait, we must change it first," and Lizavyeta Petrovna deposited this red and wobbling something on the bed, and proceeded to unswathe it and then swathe it again, lifting and turning it over with one finger, and shaking some kind of powder over it.
Levin, as he looked at the poor little bit of humanity, tried in vain to discover within his soul some paternal sentiments toward it. His only feeling was one of repulsion; but when they took off its things, and he saw its little tiny delicate arms and legs, still saffron-colored, and its still tinier fingers, and even a thumb differentiated from the others, and when he saw Lizavyeta Petrovna handling its little, waving arms, just as if they were delicate springs, and putting them into linen garments, such pity seized him, and such terror lest she should hurt it, that he made a gesture to stop her.
Lizavyeta Petrovna laughed.
"Never fear, never fear," she said.
When the child was dressed, and metamorphosed into a regular doll, Lizavyeta Petrovna tossed him up and down, as if proud of her work, and held him off so that Levin might see his son in all his beauty.
Kitty, not taking her eyes from him, was alarmed.
"Give him to me, give him to me," she cried; and she even lifted herself up.
"But, Katerina Aleksandrovna, you must know that any such motions are forbidden. Be patient; I will give him to you. But we must let papasha see what a fine young man we are."
And Lizavyeta Petrovna handed to Levin with one hand—the other supported the limp occiput—this strange, weak, red creature, whose head fell limply on its swaddling-clothes. All that was to be seen of it was a nose, a pair of eyes that looked in two directions, and smacking lips.
"Prekrasnui rebyonok—a splendid baby," said Lizavyeta Petrovna.
Levin drew a deep breath of mortification. This splendid baby inspired him only with a feeling of pity and disgust. It was not at all the feeling that he expected.
He turned away while the nurse placed it in Kitty's arms. Suddenly a laugh caused him to raise his head. It was Kitty who laughed; the baby had taken the breast.
"There! that's enough, that's enough," said Lizavyeta Petrovna; but Kitty would not let go of her son, who had gone to sleep on her arm.
"Look at him now," said she, turning the child so that his father might see him. The little old face suddenly grew still more wrinkled, and the child sneezed.
Levin, smiling and hardly able to restrain his tears of tenderness, kissed his wife, and left the room.
The feelings which this little being awakened in him were entirely different from what he had expected! There was neither pride nor joy in the feeling, but rather a new and painful fear. It was the consciousness that he had become vulnerable in a new way. And this consciousness at first was so acute, his fear lest this poor, defenseless creature might suffer was so poignant, that it drowned the strange feeling of thoughtless joy, and even pride, that rose in his heart when the infant sneezed.