Part Seven: Chapter 15

by Leo Tolstoy

　　He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles hadall burned out. Dolly had just been in the study and hadsuggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin satlistening to the doctor's stories of a quack mesmerizer andlooking at the ashes of his cigarette. There had been a periodof repose, and he had sunk into oblivion. He had completelyforgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat andunderstood it. Suddenly there came an unearthly shriek. Theshriek was so awful that Levin did not even jump up, but holdinghis breath, gazed in terrified inquiry at the doctor. The doctorput his head on one side, listened, and smiled approvingly.Everything was so extraordinary that nothing could strike Levinas strange. "I suppose it must be so," he thought, and still satwhere he was. Whose scream was this? He jumped up, ran ontiptoe to the bedroom, edged round Lizaveta Petrovna and theprincess, and took up his position at Kitty's pillow. The screamhad subsided, but there was some change now. What it was he didnot see and did not comprehend, and he had no wish to see orcomprehend. But he saw it by the face of Lizaveta Petrovna.Lizaveta Petrovna's face was stern and pale, and still asresolute, though her jaws were twitching, and her eyes were fixedintently on Kitty. Kitty's swollen and agonized face, a tress ofhair clinging to her moist brow, was turned to him and sought hiseyes. Her lifted hands asked for his hands. Clutching his chillhands 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 saidrapidly. "Mamma, take my earrings. They bother me. You're notafraid? Quick, quick, Lizaveta Petrovna..."

　　She spoke quickly, very quickly, and tried to smile. Butsuddenly her face was drawn, she pushed him away.

　　"Oh, this is awful! I'm dying, I'm dying! Go away!" sheshrieked, 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 afterhim.

　　But they might say what they liked, he knew now that all wasover. He stood in the next room, his head leaning against thedoor post, and heard shrieks, howls such as he had never heardbefore, and he knew that what had been Kitty was uttering theseshrieks. He had long ago ceased to wish for the child. By nowhe loathed this child. He did not even wish for her life now,all he longed for was the end of this awful anguish.

　　"Doctor! what is it? What is it? By God!" he said, snatching atthe doctor's hand as he came up.

　　"It's the end," said the doctor. And the doctor's face was sograve as he said it that Levin took the end as meaning her death.

　　Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first thing he sawwas the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. It was even more frowning andstern. Kitty's face he did not know. In the place where it hadbeen was something that was fearful in its strained distortionand in the sounds that came from it. He fell down with his headon the wooden framework of the bed, feeling that his heart wasbursting. The awful scream never paused, it became still moreawful, and as though it had reached the utmost limit of terror,suddenly it ceased. Levin could not believe his ears, but therecould be no doubt; the scream had ceased and he heard a subduedstir and bustle, and hurried breathing, and her voice, gasping,alive, tender, and blissful, uttered softly, "It's over!"

　　He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted on thequilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene, she looked athim in silence and tried to smile, and could not.

　　And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful far-away world inwhich he had been living for the last twenty-two hours, Levinfelt himself all in an instant borne back to the old every-dayworld, glorified though now, by such a radiance of happiness thathe could not bear it. The strained chords snapped, sobs andtears of joy which he had never foreseen rose up with suchviolence that his whole body shook, that for long they preventedhim from speaking.

　　Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife's handbefore his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a weak movementof the fingers, responded to his kiss. And meanwhile, there atthe foot of the bed, in the deft hands of Lizaveta Petrovna, likea flickering light in a lamp, lay the life of a human creature,which had never existed before, and which would now with the sameright, with the same importance to itself, live and create in itsown image.

　　"Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!" Levinheard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped the baby's backwith a shaking hand.

　　"Mamma, is it true?" said Kitty's voice.

　　The princess's sobs were all the answers she could make. And inthe midst of the silence there came in unmistakable reply to themother's question, a voice quite unlike the subdued voicesspeaking in the room. It was the bold, clamorous, self-assertivesquall of the new human being, who had so incomprehensiblyappeared.

　　If Levin had been told before that Kitty was dead, and that hehad died with her, and that their children were angels, and thatGod was standing before him, he would have been surprised atnothing. But now, coming back to the world of reality, he had tomake great mental efforts to take in that she was alive and well,and that the creature squalling so desperately was his son.Kitty was alive, her agony was over. And he was unutterablyhappy. That he understood; he was completely happy in it. Butthe baby? Whence, why, who was he?... He could not get used tothe idea. It seemed to him something extraneous, superfluous, towhich he could not accustom himself.