saw two stars glowing in the already darkening sky, and suddenly he remembered a course of reasoning:—
"Yes," said he to himself, "as I looked at the heavens I thought that the vault which I gaze at is not a lie. But there was the something that remained half thought out in my mind,—something that I hid from myself. Now, what was it? There cannot be an answer. If one could think it out, all things would be explained."
Just as he entered the child's chamber, he remembered what it was that he hid from himself. It was this:—
"If the chief proof of the existence of God lies in the revelation of good, why should this revelation be limited to the Christian Church? How about those millions of Buddhists and Mohammedans, who are also seeking for the truth and doing right?"
It seemed to him that there must be an answer to this question, but he could not find and express it before entering the room.
Kitty, with her sleeves rolled up, was bending over the bath-tub, in which she was washing the baby. As she heard her husband's steps, she turned her face to him, and with a smile called him to her. With one hand she was supporting the head of the plump little fellow, who was floating on his back in the water and kicking with his legs; with the other she was squeezing the sponge on him.
"Come here! look, look!" said she, as her husband came up to , her. "Agafya Mikhaïlovna is right; he knows us."
The fact was that Mitya to-day for the first time gave indubitable proof that he knew his friends.
As soon as Levin went to the bath-tub, the experiment was tried, and it was wholly successful. A cook, who was called for the purpose, bent over the tub. The baby frowned and shook his head. Kitty bent over him, and he smiled radiantly, and clung with his little hands to the sponge and sucked with his lips, producing such a strange and contented sound that not only the mother and the nurse, but Levin himself, were enchanted.
