Lizaveta Petrovna

Also known as: midwife · Role: birth attendant · First appears: PART SEVEN · Chapter 13

Life events

• Kitty recognizes that labor has begun and asks Levin to summon Lizaveta Petrovna.(PART SEVEN · Chapter 13)
  • With: Kitty
  • “Kostya, don’t be frightened. It’s all right. But I fancy.... We ought to send for Lizaveta Petrovna.”
• Levin leaves to fetch the doctor and encounters Lizaveta Petrovna on her way to assist Kitty.(PART SEVEN · Chapter 13)
  • With: Levin Kouzma
  • “At the corner he met a night cabman driving hurriedly. In the little sledge, wrapped in a velvet cloak, sat Lizaveta Petrovna with a kerchief round her head.”
• Kitty’s labor progresses, and Lizaveta Petrovna advises persuading her to lie down.(PART SEVEN · Chapter 14)
  • With: Kitty
  • “‘She’s going on well,’ she said; ‘persuade her to lie down. She will be easier so.’”
• Kitty survives childbirth and gives birth to a boy.(PART SEVEN · Chapter 15)
  • With: Kitty Levin
  • “Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!”
• Dmitri begins nursing from Kitty and falls asleep in her arms.(PART SEVEN · Chapter 16)
  • With: Dmitri Kitty
  • “Suddenly laughter made him look round. The baby had taken the breast. ‘Come, that’s enough, that’s enough!’ said Lizaveta Petrovna, but Kitty would not let the baby go. He fell asleep in her arms.”

PART SEVEN · Chapter 13

• with Kitty (Kitty summons Lizaveta Petrovna to assist with the labor.) “I have sent to mamma. You go quickly to fetch Lizaveta Petrovna ... Kostya!... Nothing, it’s over.”
• with Pyotr Dmitrievitch (Lizaveta Petrovna instructs that Pyotr Dmitrievitch be informed.) “You should let Pyotr Dmitrievitch know, but don’t hurry him.”
• with Levin (Levin is sent to fetch her.) “You go quickly to fetch Lizaveta Petrovna ...”

PART SEVEN · Chapter 14

• with Kitty (interaction) “‘Well, my dear Lizaveta Petrovna?’ she queried, clasping the hand of the midwife, who came out to meet them with a beaming and anxious face.”
• with Kitty (Lizaveta Petrovna assists Kitty during her labor.) “He saw her swollen face, sometimes bewildered and in agony, sometimes smiling and trying to reassure him. He saw the old princess too, flushed and overwrought, with her gray curls in disorder, forcing herself to gulp down her tears, biting her lips; he saw Dolly too and the doctor, smoking fat cigarettes, and Lizaveta Petrovna with a firm, resolute, reassuring face, and the old prince walking up and down the hall with a frowning face. But why they came in and went out, where they were, he did not know. The princess was with the doctor in the bedroom, then in the study, where a table set for dinner suddenly appeared; then she was not there, but Dolly was. Then Levin remembered he had been sent somewhere. Once he had been sent to move a table and sofa. He had done this eagerly, thinking it had to be done for her sake, and only later on he found it was his own bed he had been getting ready. Then he had been sent to the study to ask the doctor something. The doctor had answered and then had said something about the irregularities in the municipal council. Then he had been sent to the bedroom to help the old princess to move the holy picture in its silver and gold setting, and with the princess’s old waiting maid he had clambered on a shelf to reach it and had broken the little lamp, and the old servant had tried to reassure him about the lamp and about his wife, and he carried the holy picture and set it at Kitty’s head, carefully tucking it in behind the pillow.”

PART SEVEN · Chapter 15

• with Kitty (Lizaveta Petrovna is assisting Kitty during childbirth.) “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.”
• with Levin (Lizaveta Petrovna reassures Levin after assisting the birth.) “‘Alive! alive! And a boy too! Set your mind at rest!’ Levin heard Lizaveta Petrovna saying, as she slapped the baby’s back with a shaking hand.”

PART SEVEN · Chapter 16

• with Dmitri (Lizaveta Petrovna is caring for and handling the baby.) “Lizaveta Petrovna laughed.”

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Extracted from the original text of Anna Karenina. Made with Rho MD.