Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/494

 "Yes, in a dream," she continued. "I had this dream a long time ago. I dreamed that I ran into my room to get something or other. I was searching about, you know, as one does in dreams," said she, opening her eyes wide with horror, "and I noticed something standing in the corner of my room,"

"What nonsense! How do you suppose ...."

But she would not let him interrupt her; what she was telling was too important to her.

"And this something turned around, and I saw a little dirty muzhik, with an unkempt beard. I wanted to run away, but he bent toward a bag, in which he moved some object."

She made the motion of a person rummaging in a bag; terror was depicted on her face; and Vronsky, recalling his own dream, felt the same terror seize his soul.

"And all the while he was searching, he talked fast, very fast, in French, lisping, you know,' Il faut le battre, le fer, le broyer, le pétrir .... ' I tried to wake up, but I only woke up in my dream, asking what it could mean. And Karneï said to me, 'You are going to die, you are going to die in child-bed, matushka.' And at last I woke up." ....

"What an absurd dream!" said Vronsky, but he himself felt that there was no conviction in his voice.

"But let us say no more about it. Ring; I am going to give you some tea, so stay a little longer. It is a long time since I ...."

She suddenly ceased speaking. The expression of her face instantly changed. Horror and emotion disappeared from her face, which assumed an expression of gentle, serious, and affectionate solicitude. He could not understand the significance of that change.

She had felt within her the motion of a new life.