Anna Karenina - Part 7

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.