Page 915 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

while he was judging, blaming, and hating, had become
clear and simple when he forgave and loved.
He forgave his wife and pitied her for her sufferings and
her remorse. He forgave Vronsky, and pitied him,

especially after reports reached him of his despairing
action. He felt more for his son than before. And he
blamed himself now for having taken too little interest in
him. But for the little newborn baby he felt a quite
peculiar sentiment, not of pity, only, but of tenderness. At
first, from a feeling of compassion alone, he had been
interested in the delicate little creature, who was not his
child, and who was cast on one side during her mother’s
illness, and would certainly have died if he had not
troubled about her, and he did not himself observe how
fond he became of her. He would go into the nursery
several times a day, and sit there for a long while, so that
the nurses, who were at first afraid of him, got quite used
to his presence. Sometimes for half an hour at a stretch he
would sit silently gazing at the saffron-red, downy,
wrinkled face of the sleeping baby, watching the
movements of the frowning brows, and the fat little hands,
with clenched fingers, that rubbed the little eyes and nose.
At such moments particularly, Alexey Alexandrovitch had
a sense of perfect peace and inward harmony, and saw

914 of 1759