by Leo Tolstoy
'Lord, forgive us and help us,' he constantly repeated to himself, feeling, in spite of so long and seemingly so complete an estrangement, that he was turning to God just as trustfully and simply as in his childhood and early youth.
All this time he had two separate moods. One away from her presence, with the doctor, who smoked one fat cigarette after another, putting them out against the edge of the full ashtray, with Dolly and the prince, where they talked of dinner, politics, Marya Petrovna's illness, where Levin would suddenly forget what was happening for a moment and feel as if he were waking up; and the other in her presence, by her head, where his heart was ready to burst from compassion but would not burst, and he prayed to God without ceasing. And each time he was brought out of momentary oblivion by a cry reaching him from the bedroom, he fell into the same strange delusion that had come over him at the first moment; each time, hearing a cry, he jumped up and ran to vindicate himself, remembering on the way that he was not to blame, and then he longed to protect and help her. But, looking at her, he again saw that it was impossible to help, and he was horrified and said: 'Lord, forgive us and help us.' And the more time that passed, the stronger the two moods became: the calmer he became, even forgetting her completely, away from her presence, and the more tormenting became her sufferings and his own helplessness before them. He would jump up, wishing to run away somewhere, and run to her.
Sometimes, when she called him again and again, he blamed her. But seeing her obedient, smiling face and hearing the words, 'I've worn you out,' he blamed God, then, remembering God, he at once asked Him to forgive and have mercy.
XV
He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles were all burning low. Dolly had just come to the study to suggest that the doctor lie down. Levin sat there listening to the doctor tell about a quack mesmerist and watching the ashes of his cigarette. It was a period of rest and he had become oblivious. He had entirely forgotten what was going on now. He listened to the doctor's story and understood it. Suddenly there was a scream unlike anything he had ever heard. The scream was so terrible that Levin did not even jump up, but, holding his breath, gave the doctor a frightened, questioning look. The doctor cocked his head to one side, listened, and smiled approvingly. It was all so extraordinary that nothing any longer astonished Levin: 'Probably it should be so,' he thought and went on sitting. Whose scream was it? He jumped up, ran on tiptoe to the bedroom, went round Lizaveta Petrovna and the princess, and stood in his place at the head of the bed. The screaming had ceased, but something was changed now. What - he did not see or understand, nor did he want to see and understand. But he saw it from Lizaveta Petrovna's face: her face was stern and pale and still just as resolute, though her jaws twitched a little and her eyes were fixed on Kitty. Kitty's burning, tormented face, with a strand of hair stuck to her sweaty forehead, was turned to him and sought his eyes. Her raised hands asked for his. Seizing his hands in her sweaty hands, she started pressing them to her face.
'Don't leave, don't leave! I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid!' she spoke quickly. 'Mama, take my earrings. They bother me. You're not afraid? Soon, Lizaveta Petrovna, soon ...'
She spoke quickly, quickly, and tried to smile. But suddenly her face became distorted, and she pushed him away from her.
'No, it's terrible! I'll die, I'll die! Go, go!' she cried, and again came that scream that was unlike anything in the world.
Levin clutched his head and ran out of the room.
'Never mind, never mind, it's all right!' Dolly said after him.
But whatever they said, he knew that all was now lost. Leaning his head against the doorpost, he stood in the next room and heard a shrieking and howling such as he had never heard before, and he knew that these cries were coming from what had once been Kitty. He had long ceased wishing for the child. He now hated this child. He did not even wish for her to live now; he only wished for an end to this terrible suffering.
'Doctor! What is it? What is it? My God!' he said, seizing the doctor by the arm as he came in.
'It's nearly over,' said the doctor. And the doctor's face was so serious as he said it that Levin understood this 'nearly over' to mean she was dying.
Forgetting himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first thing he saw was Lizaveta Petrovna's face. It was still more stern and frowning. Kitty's face was not there. In place of it, where it used to be, was something dreadful both in its strained look and in the sound that came from it. He leaned his head against the wooden bedstead, feeling that his heart was bursting. The terrible screaming would not stop, it became still more terrible and then, as if reaching the final limit of the terrible, it suddenly stopped. Levin did not believe his ears, but there could be no doubt: the screaming stopped, and there was a quiet stirring, a rustle and quick breathing, and her faltering, alive, gentle and happy voice softly said: 'It's over.'
He raised his head. Her arms resting strengthlessly on the blanket, remarkably beautiful and quiet, she silently looked at him and tried but was unable to smile.
And suddenly from that mysterious and terrible, unearthly world in which he had lived for those twenty-two hours, Levin felt himself instantly transported into the former, ordinary world, but radiant now with such a new light of happiness that he could not bear it. The taut strings all snapped. Sobs and tears of joy, which he could never have foreseen, rose in him with such force, heaving his whole body, that for a long time they prevented him from speaking.
Falling on his knees beside the bed, he held his wife's hand to his lips, kissing it, and the hand responded to his kisses with a weak movement of the fingers. And meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed, in the deft hands of Lizaveta Petrovna, like a small flame over a lamp, wavered the life of a human being who had never existed before and who, with the same right, with the same importance for itself, would live and produce its own kind.
'Alive! Alive! And it's a boy! Don't worry!' Levin heard the voice of Lizaveta Petrovna, who was slapping the baby's back with a trembling hand.
'Mama, is it true?' said Kitty's voice.
She was answered only by the princess's sobs.
And amidst the silence, as the indubitable reply to the mother's question, a voice was heard, quite different from all the subdued voices speaking in the room. It was the bold, brazen cry, not intent on understanding anything, of a new human being who had appeared incomprehensibly from somewhere.
Earlier, if Levin had been told that Kitty had died and that he had died with her, and that they had angels for children, and that God was there before them - none of it would have surprised him; but now, having come back to the world of reality, he made great mental efforts to understand that she was alive and well, and that the being shrieking so desperately was his son. Kitty was alive, her sufferings were over. And he was inexpressibly happy. That he understood, and in that he was fully happy. But the baby? Whence, why, and who was he? ... He simply could not understand, could not get accustomed to this thought. It seemed to him something superfluous, an over-abundance, and for a long time he could not get used to it.
XVI
Towards ten o'clock the old prince, Sergei Ivanovich and Stepan Arkadyich were sitting at Levin's and, after talking about the new mother, had begun talking about other things as well. Levin listened to their talk and, involuntarily recalling the past, the way things had been before that morning, also recalled himself as he had been yesterday before it all. It was as if a hundred years had passed since then. He felt himself on some inaccessible height, from which he tried to climb down so as not to offend those with whom he was talking. He talked and never stopped thinking about his wife, about the details of her present condition, and about his son, trying to get used to the thought of his existence. The whole world of women, which had acquired a new, previously unknown significance for him after his marriage, now rose so high in his estimation that he was unable to encompass it in imagination. He listened to the conversation about yesterday's dinner at the club and thought, '
What's going on with her now? Is she sleeping? How is she? What is she thinking about? Is our son Dmitri crying?' And in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of a phrase, he jumped up and started out of the room.
'Send me word if she can be seen,' said the prince.
'Very well, one moment,' replied Levin and without pausing he went to her room.
She was not sleeping but was talking softly with her mother, making plans for the future christening.
Tidied up, her hair combed, in a fancy cap trimmed with something light blue, her arms on top of the blanket, she was lying on her back, and her eyes, meeting his, drew him to her. Her eyes, bright to begin with, brightened still more as he approached her. In her face there was the same change from earthly to unearthly that occurs in the faces of the dead; but there it is a farewell, here it was a meeting. Again an emotion like that which he had experienced at the moment of the birth welled up in his heart. She took his hand and asked whether he had slept. He was unable to respond and kept turning away, certain of his own weakness.
'And I dozed off, Kostya!' she said to him. 'And I feel so good now.'
She was looking at him, but suddenly her expression changed.
'Give him to me,' she said, hearing the baby squealing. 'Give him here, Lizaveta Petrovna, and he can look at him, too.' 'Well, there, let papa have a look,' said Lizaveta Petrovna, picking up and bringing to him something red, strange and wobbly. 'Wait, we'll tidy ourselves up first.' And Lizaveta Petrovna put this wobbly and red thing on the bed, began unwrapping and wrapping the baby, lifting and turning him with one finger and dusting him with something.
Levin, gazing at this tiny, pathetic being, made vain efforts to find some trace of paternal feeling in his soul. All he felt for him was squeamishness. But when he saw him naked, and glimpsed the thin, thin little arms, the legs, saffron-coloured, with toes and even with a big toe different from the others, and when he saw Lizaveta Petrovna press down those little arms, which kept popping up like soft springs, confining them in the linen clothes, he was overcome with such pity for this being, and such fear that she might harm him, that he held back her hand.
Lizaveta Petrovna laughed.
'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!'
When the baby was tidied up and turned into a stiff little doll, Lizaveta Petrovna rocked him once, as if proud of her work, and drew back so that Levin could see his son in all his beauty.
Kitty, not taking her eyes away, looked sidelong in the same direction.
'Give him here, give him here!' she said and even rose slightly.
'No, no, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn't make such movements! Wait, I'll bring him. Here, we'll show papa what a fine fellow we are!'
And Lizaveta Petrovna held out to Levin on one hand (the other merely propping the unsteady head with its fingers) this strange, wobbly, red being whose head was hidden behind the edge of the swaddling-clothes. There was also a nose, crossed eyes and smacking lips.
'A beautiful baby!' said Lizaveta Petrovna.
Levin sighed with dismay. This beautiful baby inspired only a feeling of squeamishness and pity in him. It was not at all the feeling he had expected.
He turned away while Lizaveta Petrovna was putting him to the unaccustomed breast.
Suddenly laughter made him raise his head. It was Kitty laughing. The baby had taken the breast.
'Well, enough, enough!' said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty would not let go of him. The baby fell asleep in her arms.
'Look now,' said Kitty, turning the baby towards him so that he could see him. The old-looking face suddenly wrinkled still more, and the baby sneezed.
Smiling and barely keeping back tears of tenderness, Levin kissed his wife and left the darkened room.
What he felt for this small being was not at all what he had expected. There was nothing happy or joyful in this feeling; on the contrary, there was a new tormenting fear. There was an awareness of a new region of vulnerability. And this awareness was so tormenting at first, the fear lest this helpless being should suffer was so strong, that because of it he scarcely noticed the strange feeling of senseless joy and even pride he had experienced when the baby sneezed.
XVII
Stepan Arkadyich's affairs were in a bad state.
The money for two-thirds of the wood had already been run through, and he had taken from the merchant, after a discount of ten per cent, almost all the money for the final third. The merchant would not give more, especially since that winter Darya Alexandrovna, claiming a direct right to her own fortune for the first time, had refused to put her signature to the receipt of the money for the last third of the wood. His entire salary went on household expenses and the paying of small, ever present debts. They had no money at all.
This was unpleasant, awkward, and could not go on, in Stepan Arkadyich's opinion. The reason for it, to his mind, was that his salary was too small. The post he occupied had obviously been very good five years ago, but now it was no longer so. Petrov, a bank director, earned twelve thousand; Sventitsky, a company director, earned seventeen thousand; Mitin, founder of a bank, earned fifty thousand. 'I evidently fell asleep and they forgot me,' Stepan Arkadyich thought to himself. And he began to keep his ears and eyes open, and by the end of winter had picked out a very good post and mounted an attack on it, first from Moscow, through aunts, uncles, friends, and then, in the spring, as the affair ripened, he himself went to Petersburg. This was one of those cushy bribery posts, with salaries ranging from a thousand to fifty thousand a year, which had now become more numerous than before; it was a post as member of the commission of the United Agency for Mutual Credit Balance of the Southern Railway Lines and Banking Institutions.[19] This post, like all such posts, called for such vast knowledge and energy as could hardly be united in one person. And since the person in whom all these qualities could be united did not exist, it would be better in any case if the post were occupied by an honest man rather than a dishonest one. And Stepan Arkadyich was not only an honest man (without emphasis), but was also an honest man (with emphasis), with that special significance which the word has in Moscow, when they say: an honest politician, an honest writer, an honest journal, an honest institution, an honest tendency - which signifies not only that the man or institution is not dishonest, but that they are capable on occasion of sticking a pin into the government. Stepan Arkadyich belonged to those circles in Moscow in which this word had been introduced, was considered an honest man in them, and therefore had more rights to this post than others did.
The post brought from seven to ten thousand a year, and Oblonsky could occupy it without leaving his government post. It depended on two ministers, one lady and two Jews; and, though they had been primed already, Stepan Arkadyich still had to see them all in Petersburg. Besides that, Stepan Arkadyich had promised his sister Anna to get a decisive answer from Karenin about the divorce. And so, having begged fifty roubles from Dolly, he went to Petersburg.
Sitting in Karenin's study and listening to his proposal on the causes of the bad state of Russian finances, Stepan Arkadyich only waited for the moment when he would finish, so that he could speak about his own affairs and about Anna.
'Yes, that's very true,' he said, when Alexei Alexandrovich, taking off his pince-nez, without which he was now unable to read, looked questioningly at his former brother-in-law, 'it's very true in detail, but all the same the principle of our time is freedom.'
'Yes, but I put forward another principle that embraces the principle of freedom,' said Alexei Alexandrovich, emphasizing the word 'embraces' and putting his pince-nez on again in order to reread to his listener the passage where that very thing was stated.
And, looking through the beautifully written, huge-margined manuscript, Alexei Alexandrovich reread the persuasive passage.
'I oppose systems of protection, not for the sake of the profit of private persons, but for the common good - for lower and upper classes equally,' he said, looking at Oblonsky over his pince-nez. 'But
they cannot understand it, they are concerned only with personal interest and have a passion for phrases.' Stepan Arkadyich knew that when Karenin started talking about what they did and thought, the same ones who did not want to accept his proposals and were the cause of all the evil in Russia, it meant that he was near the end; and therefore he now willingly renounced the principle of freedom and fully agreed with him. Alexei Alexandrovich fell silent, thoughtfully leafing through his manuscript.
'Ah, by the way,' said Stepan Arkadyich, 'I wanted to ask you, when you happen to see Pomorsky, to mention to him that I would like very much to get that vacant post as member of the commission of the United Agency for Mutual Credit Balance of the Southern Railway Lines.'
Stepan Arkadyich had become accustomed to the title of this post so near his heart and pronounced it quickly, without making a mistake.
