The mistake made by Alexey Alexandrovitch in that, when preparing

for seeing his wife, he had overlooked the possibility that her

repentance might be sincere, and he might forgive her, and she

might not die--this mistake was two months after his return from

Moscow brought home to him in all its significance. But the

mistake made by him had arisen not simply from his having

overlooked that contingency, but also from the fact that until

that day of his interview with his dying wife, he had not known

his own heart. At his sick wife's bedside he had for the first

time in his life given way to that feeling of sympathetic

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suffering always roused in him by the sufferings of others, and

hitherto looked on by him with shame as a harmful weakness. And

pity for her, and remorse for having desired her death, and most

of all, the joy of forgiveness, made him at once conscious, not

simply of the relief of his own sufferings, but of a spiritual

peace he had never experienced before. He suddenly felt that the

very thing that was the source of his sufferings had become the

source of his spiritual joy; that what had seemed insoluble 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 nothing extraordinary in his

position, nothing that ought to be changed.




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