Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/894

 PART SEVENTH

CHAPTER I

Levins had been in Moscow for two months, and the time fixed by competent authorities for Kitty's deliverance was already passed.

But she was still waiting, and there was no sign that the time was any nearer than it had been two months before. The doctor and the midwife and Dolly and her mother, and especially Levin, who could not without terror think of the approaching event, now began to feel impatient and anxious. Kitty alone kept perfectly calm and happy. She now clearly recognized in her heart the birth of a new feeling of love for the child which already partly existed for her, and she entertained this feeling with joy. The child was no longer only a part of her; even now it already lived its own independent life at times. This caused her suffering; but at the same time she felt like laughing, with a strange, unknown joy.

All whom she loved were with her, and all were so good to her, took such care of her, and tried so to make everything pleasant for her, that, if she had not known and felt that the end must soon come, this would have been the happiest and best part of her life. Only one thing clouded her perfect happiness, and this was that her husband was different from the Levin she loved or the Levin that lived in the country.

She had loved his calm, gentle, and hospitable ways in the country. In the city he seemed all the time rest- less and on his guard, as if he feared that some one was going to insult him or her. There in the country he was usefully occupied, and seemed to know that he was