Part Eight: Chapter 6

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Sergey Ivanovitch had not telegraphed to his brother to send tomeet him, as he did not know when he should be able to leaveMoscow. Levin was not at home when Katavasov and SergeyIvanovitch in a fly hired at the station drove up to the steps ofthe Pokrovskoe house, as black as Moors from the dust of theroad. Kitty, sitting on the balcony with her father and sister,recognized her brother-in-law, and ran down to meet him.

　　"What a shame not to have let us know," she said, giving her handto Sergey Ivanovitch, and putting her forehead up for him tokiss.

　　"We drove here capitally, and have not put you out," answeredSergey Ivanovitch. "I'm so dirty. I'm afraid to touch you.I've been so busy, I didn't know when I should be able to tearmyself away. And so you're still as ever enjoying your peaceful,quiet happiness," he said, smiling, "out of the reach of thecurrent in your peaceful backwater. Here's our friend FyodorVassilievitch who has succeeded in getting here at last."

　　"But I'm not a negro, I shall look like a human being when Iwash," said Katavasov in his jesting fashion, and he shook handsand smiled, his teeth flashing white in his black face.

　　"Kostya will be delighted. He has gone to his settlement. It'stime he should be home."

　　"Busy as ever with his farming. It really is a peacefulbackwater," said Katavasov; "while we in town think of nothingbut the Servian war. Well, how does our friend look at it? He'ssure not to think like other people."

　　"Oh, I don't know, like everybody else," Kitty answered, a littleembarrassed, looking round at Sergey Ivanovitch. "I'll send tofetch him. Papa's staying with us. He's only just come homefrom abroad."

　　And making arrangements to send for Levin and for the guests towash, one in his room and the other in what had been Dolly's, andgiving orders for their luncheon, Kitty ran out onto the balcony,enjoying the freedom, and rapidity of movement, of which she hadbeen deprived during the months of her pregnancy.

　　"It's Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov, a professor," she said.

　　"Oh, that's a bore in this heat," said the prince.

　　"No, papa, he's very nice, and Kostya's very fond of him," Kittysaid, with a deprecating smile, noticing the irony on herfather's face.

　　"Oh, I didn't say anything."

　　"You go to them, darling," said Kitty to her sister, "andentertain them. They saw Stiva at the station; he was quitewell. And I must run to Mitya. As ill-luck would have it, Ihaven't fed him since tea. He's awake now, and sure to bescreaming." And feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to thenursery.

　　This was not a mere guess; her connection with the child wasstill so close, that she could gauge by the flow of her milk hisneed of food, and knew for certain he was hungry.

　　She knew he was crying before she reached the nursery. And hewas indeed crying. She heard him and hastened. But the fastershe went, the louder he screamed. It was a fine healthy scream,hungry and impatient.

　　"Has he been screaming long, nurse, very long?" said Kittyhurriedly, seating herself on a chair, and preparing to give thebaby the breast. "But give me him quickly. Oh, nurse, howtiresome you are! There, tie the cap afterwards, dol"

　　The baby's greedy scream was passing into sobs.

　　"But you can't manage so, ma'am," said Agafea Mihalovna, who wasalmost always to be found in the nursery. "He must be putstraight. A-oo! a-oo!" she chanted over him, paying no attentionto the mother.

　　The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agafea Mihalovnafollowed him with a face dissolving with tenderness.

　　"He knows me, he knows me. In God's faith, KaterinaAlexandrovna, ma'am, he knew me!" Agafea Mihalovna cried abovethe baby's screams.

　　But Kitty did not hear her words. Her impatience kept growing,like the baby's.

　　Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby could notget hold of the breast right, and was furious.

　　At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vainsucking, things went right, and mother and child feltsimultaneously soothed, and both subsided into calm.

　　"But poor darling, he's all in perspiration!" said Kitty in awhisper, touching the baby.

　　"What makes you think he knows you?" she added, with a sidelongglance at the baby's eyes, that peered roguishly, as she fancied,from under his cap, at his rhythmically puffing cheeks, and thelittle red-palmed hand he was waving.

　　"Impossible! If he knew anyone, he would have known me," saidKitty, in response to Agafea Mihalovna's statement, and shesmiled.

　　She smiled because, though she said he could not know her, in herheart she was sure that he knew not merely Agafea Mihalovna, butthat he knew and understood everything, and knew and understood agreat deal too that no one else knew, and that she, his mother,had learned and come to understand only through him. To AgafeaMihalovna, to the nurse, to his grandfather, to his father even,Mitya was a living being, requiring only materiel care, but forhis mother he had long been a mortal being, with whom there hadbeen a whole series of spiritual relations already.

　　"When he wakes up, please God, you shall see for yourself. Thenwhen I do like this, he simply beams on me, the darling! Simplybeams like a sunny day!" said Agafea Mihalovna.

　　"Well, well then we shall see," whispered Kitty. "But now goaway, he's going to sleep."