Part 7. Chapter 15.

He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles had all burned out. Dolly had just been in the study and had suggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat listening to the doctor's stories of a quack mesmerizer and looking at the ashes of his cigarette. Levin était assis en écoutant les histoires du docteur sur un hypnotiseur charlatan et en regardant les cendres de sa cigarette. Levinas sėdėjo klausydamasis daktaro pasakojimų apie kvaksčių hipnotizatorių ir žiūrėdamas į savo cigaretės pelenus. Levin zat te luisteren naar de doktersverhalen over een kwakzalver-hypnotiseur en keek naar de as van zijn sigaret. There had been a period of repose, and he had sunk into oblivion. Il y avait eu une période de repos, et il était tombé dans l'oubli. He had completely forgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat and understood it. Suddenly there came an unearthly shriek. Soudain, il y eut un cri surnaturel. The shriek was so awful that Levin did not even jump up, but holding his breath, gazed in terrified inquiry at the doctor. The doctor put his head on one side, listened, and smiled approvingly. Everything was so extraordinary that nothing could strike Levin as strange. "I suppose it must be so," he thought, and still sat where he was. Whose scream was this? He jumped up, ran on tiptoe to the bedroom, edged round Lizaveta Petrovna and the princess, and took up his position at Kitty's pillow. Il sursauta, courut sur la pointe des pieds jusqu'à la chambre, contourna Lizaveta Petrovna et la princesse, et prit place près de l'oreiller de Kitty. The scream had subsided, but there was some change now. Le cri s'était calmé, mais il y avait du changement maintenant. What it was he did not see and did not comprehend, and he had no wish to see or comprehend. But he saw it by the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. Lizaveta Petrovna's face was stern and pale, and still as resolute, though her jaws were twitching, and her eyes were fixed intently on Kitty. Kitty's swollen and agonized face, a tress of hair clinging to her moist brow, was turned to him and sought his eyes. Le visage gonflé et angoissé de Kitty, une tresse de cheveux accrochée à son front humide, se tourna vers lui et chercha ses yeux. Her lifted hands asked for his hands. Clutching his chill hands in her moist ones, she began squeezing them to her face.

"Don't go, don't go! I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid!" she said rapidly. "Mamma, take my earrings. They bother me. You're not afraid? Quick, quick, Lizaveta Petrovna…" She spoke quickly, very quickly, and tried to smile. But suddenly her face was drawn, she pushed him away. Mais soudain son visage était dessiné, elle le repoussa.

"Oh, this is awful! I'm dying, I'm dying! Go away!" she shrieked, and again he heard that unearthly scream.

Levin clutched at his head and ran out of the room.

"It's nothing, it's nothing, it's all right," Dolly called after him. But they might say what they liked, he knew now that all was over. He stood in the next room, his head leaning against the door post, and heard shrieks, howls such as he had never heard before, and he knew that what had been Kitty was uttering these shrieks. Il se tenait dans la pièce voisine, la tête appuyée contre le montant de la porte, et entendit des cris, des hurlements comme il n'en avait jamais entendu auparavant, et il savait que ce qu'avait été Kitty poussait ces cris. He had long ago ceased to wish for the child. By now he loathed this child. He did not even wish for her life now, all he longed for was the end of this awful anguish.

"Doctor! What is it? What is it? By God!" he said, snatching at the doctor's hand as he came up. "It's the end," said the doctor. And the doctor's face was so grave as he said it that Levin took the end as meaning her death. Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first thing he saw was the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. It was even more frowning and stern. Kitty's face he did not know. In the place where it had been was something that was fearful in its strained distortion and in the sounds that came from it. À l'endroit où il avait été, il y avait quelque chose de terrifiant dans sa distorsion tendue et dans les sons qui en provenaient. He fell down with his head on the wooden framework of the bed, feeling that his heart was bursting. Il tomba la tête sur la charpente en bois du lit, sentant que son cœur explosait. The awful scream never paused, it became still more awful, and as though it had reached the utmost limit of terror, suddenly it ceased. Levin could not believe his ears, but there could be no doubt; the scream had ceased and he heard a subdued stir and bustle, and hurried breathing, and her voice, gasping, alive, tender, and blissful, uttered softly, "It's over!" Levin n'en croyait pas ses oreilles, mais il ne pouvait y avoir aucun doute; le cri avait cessé et il entendit une agitation modérée et une respiration précipitée, et sa voix, haletante, vivante, tendre et heureuse, poussa doucement: «C'est fini! He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted on the quilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene, she looked at him in silence and tried to smile, and could not. Avec ses mains épuisées sur la couette, semblant extraordinairement charmantes et sereines, elle le regarda en silence et essaya de sourire, mais ne put le faire.

And suddenly, from the mysterious and awful far-away world in which he had been living for the last twenty-two hours, Levin felt himself all in an instant borne back to the old every-day world, glorified though now, by such a radiance of happiness that he could not bear it. Et soudain, du monde lointain mystérieux et affreux dans lequel il vivait depuis vingt-deux heures, Levin se sentit tout en un instant ramené dans l'ancien monde de tous les jours, glorifié pourtant maintenant, par un tel éclat de bonheur qu'il ne pouvait pas supporter. The strained chords snapped, sobs and tears of joy which he had never foreseen rose up with such violence that his whole body shook, that for long they prevented him from speaking. Les accords tendus claquèrent, des sanglots et des larmes de joie qu'il n'avait jamais prévues montèrent avec une telle violence que tout son corps trembla, que longtemps ils l'empêchèrent de parler.

Falling on his knees before the bed, he held his wife's hand before his lips and kissed it, and the hand, with a weak movement of the fingers, responded to his kiss. And meanwhile, there at the foot of the bed, in the deft hands of Lizaveta Petrovna, like a flickering light in a lamp, lay the life of a human creature, which had never existed before, and which would now with the same right, with the same importance to itself, live and create in its own image. Et pendant ce temps là, au pied du lit, entre les mains habiles de Lizaveta Petrovna, comme une lumière vacillante dans une lampe, gisait la vie d'une créature humaine, qui n'avait jamais existé auparavant, et qui aurait maintenant le même droit, avec la même importance pour lui-même, vivre et créer à son image.

"Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!" Mettez votre esprit au repos! " Levin heard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped the baby's back with a shaking hand. Levin entendit Lizaveta Petrovna dire, alors qu'elle frappait le dos du bébé d'une main tremblante. "Mamma, is it true?" said Kitty's voice. The princess's sobs were all the answers she could make. And in the midst of the silence there came in unmistakable reply to the mother's question, a voice quite unlike the subdued voices speaking in the room. Et au milieu du silence, il y eut une réponse indubitable à la question de la mère, une voix tout à fait différente des voix tamisées qui parlaient dans la pièce. It was the bold, clamorous, self-assertive squall of the new human being, who had so incomprehensibly appeared. C'était la bourrasque audacieuse, bruyante et affirmée de soi du nouvel être humain, qui était apparu de manière si incompréhensible.

If Levin had been told before that Kitty was dead, and that he had died with her, and that their children were angels, and that God was standing before him, he would have been surprised at nothing. But now, coming back to the world of reality, he had to make great mental efforts to take in that she was alive and well, and that the creature squalling so desperately was his son. Mais maintenant, revenant au monde de la réalité, il devait faire de grands efforts mentaux pour comprendre qu'elle était bien vivante et que la créature qui hurlait si désespérément était son fils. Kitty was alive, her agony was over. And he was unutterably happy. Et il était incroyablement heureux. That he understood; he was completely happy in it. But the baby? Whence, why, who was he?… He could not get used to the idea. It seemed to him something extraneous, superfluous, to which he could not accustom himself. Cela lui semblait quelque chose d'extérieur, de superflu, auquel il ne pouvait pas s'habituer.