(^12821283)
“But whatever it was, there can be no disproving it! I have but to think,
and all will come clear!”
Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was
he had shirked facing. It was that if the chief proof of the Divinity was
His revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined to the
Christian church alone? What relation to this revelation have the
beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who preached and did good
too?
It seemed to him that he had an answer to this question; but he
had not time to formulate it to himself before he went into the nursery.
Kitty was standing with her sleeves tucked up over the baby in the
bath. Hearing her husband’s footstep, she turned towards him, sum-
moning him to her with her smile. With one hand she was supporting
the fat baby that lay floating and sprawling on its back, while with the
other she squeezed the sponge over him.
“Come, look, look!” she said, when her husband came up to her.
“Agafea Mihalovna’s right. He knows us!”
Mitya had on that day given unmistakable, incontestable signs of
recognizing all his friends.
As soon as Levin approached the bath, the experiment was tried,
and it was completely successful. The cook, sent for with this object,
bent over the baby. He frowned and shook his head disapprovingly.
Kitty bent down to him, he gave her a beaming smile, propped his little
hands on the sponge and chirruped, making such a queer little con-
tented sound with his lips, that Kitty and the nurse were not alone in
their admiration. Levin, too, was surprised and delighted.
The baby was taken out of the bath, drenched with water, wrapped
in towels, dried, and after a piercing scream, handed to his mother.
“Well, I am glad you are beginning to love him,” said Kitty to her
husband, when she had settled herself comfortably in her usual place,
with the baby at her breast. “I am so glad! It had begun to distress me.
You said you had no feeling for him.”
“No; did I say that? I only said I was disappointed.”
“What! disappointed in him?”
“Not disappointed in him, but in my own feeling; I had expected
more. I had expected a rush of new delightful emotion to come as a
surprise. And then instead of that—disgust, pity...”
She listened attentively, looking at him over the baby, while she put
back on her slender fingers the rings she had taken off while giving
Mitya his bath.
“And most of all, at there being far more apprehension and pity
than pleasure. Today, after that fright during the storm, I understand
how I love him.”
Kitty’s smile was radiant.
“Were you very much frightened?” she said. “So was I too, but I
feel it more now that it’s over. I’m going to look at the oak. How nice
Katavasov is! And what a happy day we’ve had altogether. And you’re
so nice with Sergey Ivanovitch, when you care to be.... Well, go back to
them. It’s always so hot and steamy here after the bath.”
barré
(Barré)
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