Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/546

 CHAPTER XV

streets were still deserted. Levin walked to the Shcherbatskys' house. The principal entrance was still closed, and every one was asleep.

He returned to the hotel, went to his room, and asked for coffee. The day watchman, and not Yegor, brought it to him. Levin wished to enter into conversation with him; but some one rang for him, and he went out.

Then Levin tried to take his coffee, and put a piece of kalatch into his mouth, but his mouth did not know what to do with the bread! He eschewed it and put on his overcoat, and went out to walk again. It was just ten o'clock when he reached the Shcherbatskys' steps for the second time. They were beginning to get up; the cook was going to market. He would have to wait at least two hours longer.

Levin had passed the whole night and the morning completely oblivious of the material conditions of existence: he had neither eaten nor slept; had been exposed, with almost no clothing, to the cold for several hours; and he not only was fresh and hearty, but he was unconscious of his body; he moved without using his muscles, and felt capable of doing anything. He was persuaded that he could fly through the air or jump over the top of a house if it were necessary. He roamed about the streets to pass away the time, consulting his watch every moment or two, and looking about him.

What he saw that day he never saw again. He was particularly struck by the children on their way to school; the dark blue pigeons flying from the roof to the sidewalk; the saïkas or little cakes powdered with flour that an invisible hand was arranging in a window. These cakes, these pigeons, and two little lads were celestial objects. All this happened at once; one of the little lads ran toward a pigeon, and looked at Levin, smiling; the pigeon flapped its wings, and flew off glittering in the sunlight through a cloud of fine snow; and the smell of hot bread came through the