Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [405]
‘Please don’t be frightened, it’s nothing. I’m not afraid at all,’ she said, seeing his frightened face, and she pressed his hand to her breast, then to her lips.
He hastily jumped out of bed, unaware of himself and not taking his eyes off her, put on his dressing gown, and stood there, still looking at her. He had to go, but he could not tear himself from her eyes. Not that he did not love her face and know her expression, her gaze, but he had never seen her like that. When he remembered how upset she had been yesterday, how vile and horrible he appeared to himself before her as she was now! Her flushed face, surrounded by soft hair coming from under her night-cap, shone with joy and resolution.
However little unnaturalness and conventionality there was in Kitty’s character generally, Levin was still struck by what was uncovered to him now, when all the veils were suddenly taken away and the very core of her soul shone in her eyes. And in that simplicity and nakedness she, the very one he loved, was still more visible. She looked at him and smiled; but suddenly her eyebrows twitched, she raised her head and, quickly going up to him, took his hand and pressed all of herself to him, so that he could feel her hot breath on him. She was suffering and seemed to be complaining to him of her suffering. And by habit, in the first moment, he thought that he was to blame. But there was a tenderness in her eyes that said she not only did not reproach him but loved him for these sufferings. ‘If it’s not I, then who is to blame for this?’ he thought involuntarily, looking for the one to blame in order to punish him; but there was no one to blame. No one was to blame, but then was it not possible simply to help her, to free her? But that, too, was impossible, was not needed. She suffered, complained and yet triumphed in these sufferings, and rejoiced in them, and loved them. He saw that something beautiful was being accomplished in her soul, but what - he could not understand. It was above his understanding.
‘I’ve sent for mama. And you go quickly for Lizaveta Petrovna ... Kostya! ... Never mind, it’s over.’
She moved away from him and rang the bell.
‘Well, go now. Pasha’s coming. I’m all right.’
And with surprise Levin saw her take up the knitting she had brought during the night and begin to knit again.
As he was going out of one door, he heard the maid come in the other. He stopped in the doorway and heard Kitty give detailed orders to the maid and help her to start moving the bed.
He got dressed and, while the horse was being harnessed, since there were no cabs yet, again ran to the bedroom, not on tiptoe but on wings, as it seemed to him. Two maids with a preoccupied air were moving something in the bedroom. Kitty was walking and knitting, quickly throwing over the stitches as she gave orders.
‘I’m going for the doctor now. They’ve sent for Lizaveta Petrovna, but I’ll call there, too. Do we need anything else? Ah, yes, shall I send for Dolly?’
She looked at him, obviously not listening to what he was saying.
‘Yes, yes. Go, go,’ she said quickly, frowning and waving her hand at him.
He was going into the drawing room when he suddenly heard a pitiful, instantly fading moan from the bedroom. He stopped and for a long time could not understand.
‘Yes, it’s she,’ he said to himself and, clutching his head, he ran down the stairs.
‘Lord, have mercy, forgive us, help us!’ he repeated words that somehow suddenly came to his lips. And he, an unbeliever, repeated these words not just with his lips. Now, in that moment, he knew that neither all his doubts, nor the impossibility he knew in himself of believing by means of reason, hindered him in the least from addressing God. It all blew off his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul and his love to be?
The horse was still not ready, but feeling in himself a special straining of physical powers and