(^12361237)
She knew what worried her husband. It was his unbelief. Al-
though, if she had been asked whether she supposed that in the future
life, if he did not believe, he would be damned, she would have had to
admit that he would be damned, his unbelief did not cause her unhap-
piness. And she, confessing that for an unbeliever there can be no
salvation, and loving her husband’s soul more than anything in the
world, thought with a smile of his unbelief, and told herself that he was
absurd.
“What does he keep reading philosophy of some sort for all this
year?” she wondered. “If it’s all written in those books, he can under-
stand them. If it’s all wrong, why does he read them? He says himself
that he would like to believe. Then why is it he doesn’t believe? Surely
from his thinking so much? And he thinks so much from being solitary.
He’s always alone, alone. He can’t talk about it all to us. I fancy he’ll be
glad of these visitors, especially Katavasov. He likes discussions with
them,” she thought, and passed instantly to the consideration of where
it would be more convenient to put Katavasov, to sleep alone or to
share Sergey Ivanovitch’s room. And then an idea suddenly struck her,
which made her shudder and even disturb Mitya, who glanced se-
verely at her. “I do believe the laundress hasn’t sent the washing yet,
and all the best sheets are in use. If I don’t see to it, Agafea Mihalovna
will give Sergey Ivanovitch the wrong sheets,” and at the very idea of
this the blood rushed to Kitty’s face.
“Yes, I will arrange it,” she decided, and going back to her former
thoughts, she remembered that some spiritual question of importance
had been interrupted, and she began to recall what. “Yes, Kostya, an
unbeliever,” she thought again with a smile.
“Well, an unbeliever then! Better let him always be one than like
Madame Stahl, or what I tried to be in those days abroad. No, he won’t
ever sham anything.”
And a recent instance of his goodness rose vividly to her mind. A
fortnight ago a penitent letter had come from Stepan Arkadyevitch to
Dolly. He besought her to save his honor, to sell her estate to pay his
debts. Dolly was in despair, she detested her husband, despised him,
pitied him, resolved on a separation, resolved to refuse, but ended by
agreeing to sell part of her property. After that, with an irrepressible
smile of tenderness, Kitty recalled her husband’s shamefaced embar-
rassment, his repeated awkward efforts to approach the subject, and
how at last, having thought of the one means of helping Dolly without
wounding her pride, he had suggested to Kitty—what had not oc-
curred to her before—that she should give up her share of the prop-
erty.
“He an unbeliever indeed! With his heart, his dread of offending
anyone, even a child! Everything for others, nothing for himself. Sergey
Ivanovitch simply considers it as Kostya’s duty to be his steward. And
it’s the same with his sister. Now Dolly and her children are under his
guardianship; all these peasants who come to him every day, as though
he were bound to be at their service.”
“Yes, only be like your father, only like him,” she said, handing
Mitya over to the nurse, and putting her lips to his cheek.
barré
(Barré)
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