Page 1546 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Give him to me,’ she said, hearing the baby’s cry.
‘Give him to me, Lizaveta Petrovna, and he shall look at
him.’
‘To be sure, his papa shall look at him,’ said Lizaveta

Petrovna, getting up and bringing something red, and
queer, and wriggling. ‘Wait a minute, we’ll make him tidy
first,’ and Lizaveta Petrovna laid the red wobbling thing
on the bed, began untrussing and trussing up the baby,
lifting it up and turning it over with one finger and
powdering it with something.
Levin, looking at the tiny, pitiful creature, made
strenuous efforts to discover in his heart some traces of
fatherly feeling for it. He felt nothing towards it but
disgust. But when it was undressed and he caught a
glimpse of wee, wee, little hands, little feet, saffron-
colored, with little toes, too, and positively with a little big
toe different from the rest, and when he saw Lizaveta
Petrovna closing the wide-open little hands, as though
they were soft springs, and putting them into linen
garments, such pity for the little creature came upon him,
and such terror that she would hurt it, that he held her
hand back.
Lizaveta Petrovna laughed.
‘Don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened!’

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