Page 1295 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Well, I suppose he must say something to the lady of
the house,’ Levin said to himself. Again he fancied
something in the smile, in the all-conquering air with
which their guest addressed Kitty....

The princess, sitting on the other side of the table with
Marya Vlasyevna and Stepan Arkadyevitch, called Levin to
her side, and began to talk to him about moving to
Moscow for Kitty’s confinement, and getting ready rooms
for them. Just as Levin had disliked all the trivial
preparations for his wedding, as derogatory to the
grandeur of the event, now he felt still more offensive the
preparations for the approaching birth, the date of which
they reckoned, it seemed, on their fingers. He tried to
turn a deaf ear to these discussions of the best patterns of
long clothes for the coming baby; tried to turn away and
avoid seeing the mysterious, endless strips of knitting, the
triangles of linen, and so on, to which Dolly attached
special importance. The birth of a son (he was certain it
would be a son) which was promised him, but which he
still could not believe in—so marvelous it seemed—
presented itself to his mind, on one hand, as a happiness so
immense, and therefore so incredible; on the other, as an
event so mysterious, that this assumption of a definite
knowledge of what would be, and consequent preparation

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