Anna Karenina - Part 7

He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles had

all burned out. Dolly had just been in the study and had

suggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat

listening to the doctor's stories of a quack mesmerizer and

looking at the ashes of his cigarette. There had been a period

of repose, and he had sunk into oblivion. He had completely

forgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat and

understood it. Suddenly there came an unearthly shriek. The

shriek was so awful that Levin did not even jump up, but holding

his breath, gazed in terrified inquiry at the doctor. The doctor

put his head on one side, listened, and smiled approvingly.

Everything was so extraordinary that nothing could strike Levin

as strange. "I suppose it must be so," he thought, and still sat

where he was. Whose scream was this? He jumped up, ran on

tiptoe to the bedroom, edged round Lizaveta Petrovna and the

princess, and took up his position at Kitty's pillow. The scream

had subsided, but there was some change now. What it was he did

not see and did not comprehend, and he had no wish to see or

comprehend. But he saw it by the face of Lizaveta Petrovna.

Lizaveta Petrovna's face was stern and pale, and still as

resolute, though her jaws were twitching, and her eyes were fixed

intently on Kitty. Kitty's swollen and agonized face, a tress of

hair clinging to her moist brow, was turned to him and sought his

eyes. Her lifted hands asked for his hands. Clutching his chill

hands in her moist ones, she began squeezing them to her face.

"Don't go, don't go! I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid!" she said

rapidly. "Mamma, take my earrings. They bother me. You're not

afraid? Quick, quick, Lizaveta Petrovna..."

She spoke quickly, very quickly, and tried to smile. But

suddenly her face was drawn, she pushed him away.

"Oh, this is awful! I'm dying, I'm dying! Go away!" she

shrieked, and again he heard that unearthly scream.

Levin clutched at his head and ran out of the room.

"It's nothing, it's nothing, it's all right," Dolly called after

him.

But they might say what they liked, he knew now that all was

over. He stood in the next room, his head leaning against the

door post, and heard shrieks, howls such as he had never heard

before, and he knew that what had been Kitty was uttering these

shrieks. He had long ago ceased to wish for the child. By now

he loathed this child. He did not even wish for her life now,

all he longed for was the end of this awful anguish.