Anna Karenina

uring the whole of that day, in the extremely different conversations
in which he took part, only as it were with the top layer of his mind,
in spite of the disappointment of not finding the change he expected in
himself, Levin had been all the while joyfully conscious of the fulness
of his heart.

After the rain it was too wet to go for a walk; besides, the storm
clouds still hung about the horizon, and gathered here and there, black
and thundery, on the rim of the sky. The whole party spent the rest of
the day in the house.

No more discussions sprang up; on the contrary, after dinner everyone
was in the most amiable frame of mind.

At first Katavasov amused the ladies by his original jokes, which
always pleased people on their first acquaintance with him. Then Sergey
Ivanovitch induced him to tell them about the very interesting
observations he had made on the habits and characteristics of common
houseflies, and their life. Sergey Ivanovitch, too, was in good
spirits, and at tea his brother drew him on to explain his views of the
future of the Eastern question, and he spoke so simply and so well,
that everyone listened eagerly.

Kitty was the only one who did not hear it all—she was summoned to give
Mitya his bath.

A few minutes after Kitty had left the room she sent for Levin to come
to the nursery.

Leaving his tea, and regretfully interrupting the interesting
conversation, and at the same time uneasily wondering why he had been
sent for, as this only happened on important occasions, Levin went to
the nursery.

Although he had been much interested by Sergey Ivanovitch’s views of
the new epoch in history that would be created by the emancipation of
forty millions of men of Slavonic race acting with Russia, a conception
quite new to him, and although he was disturbed by uneasy wonder at
being sent for by Kitty, as soon as he came out of the drawing-room and
was alone, his mind reverted at once to the thoughts of the morning.
And all the theories of the significance of the Slav element in the
history of the world seemed to him so trivial compared with what was
passing in his own soul, that he instantly forgot it all and dropped
back into the same frame of mind that he had been in that morning.

He did not, as he had done at other times, recall the whole train of
thought—that he did not need. He fell back at once into the feeling
which had guided him, which was connected with those thoughts, and he
found that feeling in his soul even stronger and more definite than
before. He did not, as he had had to do with previous attempts to find
comforting arguments, need to revive a whole chain of thought to find
the feeling. Now, on the contrary, the feeling of joy and peace was
keener than ever, and thought could not keep pace with feeling.

He walked across the terrace and looked at two stars that had come out
in the darkening sky, and suddenly he remembered. “Yes, looking at the
sky, I thought that the dome that I see is not a deception, and then I
thought something, I shirked facing something,” he mused. “But whatever
it was, there can be no disproving it! I have but to think, and all
will come clear!”

Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was he had
shirked facing. It was that if the chief proof of the Divinity was His
revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined to
the Christian church alone? What relation to this revelation have the
beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who preached and did good too?

It seemed to him that he had an answer to this question; but he had not
time to formulate it to himself before he went into the nursery.

Kitty was standing with her sleeves tucked up over the baby in the
bath. Hearing her husband’s footstep, she turned towards him, summoning
him to her with her smile. With one hand she was supporting the fat
baby that lay floating and sprawling on its back, while with the other
she squeezed the sponge over him.

“Come, look, look!” she said, when her husband came up to her. “Agafea
Mihalovna’s right. He knows us!”

Mitya had on that day given unmistakable, incontestable signs of
recognizing all his friends.

As soon as Levin approached the bath, the experiment was tried, and it
was completely successful. The cook, sent for with this object, bent
over the baby. He frowned and shook his head disapprovingly. Kitty bent
down to him, he gave her a beaming smile, propped his little hands on
the sponge and chirruped, making such a queer little contented sound
with his lips, that Kitty and the nurse were not alone in their
admiration. Levin, too, was surprised and delighted.

The baby was taken out of the bath, drenched with water, wrapped in
towels, dried, and after a piercing scream, handed to his mother.

“Well, I am glad you are beginning to love him,” said Kitty to her
husband, when she had settled herself comfortably in her usual place,
with the baby at her breast. “I am so glad! It had begun to distress
me. You said you had no feeling for him.”

“No; did I say that? I only said I was disappointed.”

“What! disappointed in him?”

“Not disappointed in him, but in my own feeling; I had expected more. I
had expected a rush of new delightful emotion to come as a surprise.
And then instead of that—disgust, pity....”

She listened attentively, looking at him over the baby, while she put
back on her slender fingers the rings she had taken off while giving
Mitya his bath.

“And most of all, at there being far more apprehension and pity than
pleasure. Today, after that fright during the storm, I understand how I
love him.”

Kitty’s smile was radiant.

“Were you very much frightened?” she said. “So was I too, but I feel it
more now that it’s over. I’m going to look at the oak. How nice
Katavasov is! And what a happy day we’ve had altogether. And you’re so
nice with Sergey Ivanovitch, when you care to be.... Well, go back to
them. It’s always so hot and steamy here after the bath.”