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 ot death, but he pressed it, as he looked with contrition into her shining eyes.

"You would have suffered too terribly all alone," she said, as she raised her arms, which covered the glow of satisfaction that made her cheeks red, and began to coil up her hair and fasten it to the top of her head. "No, she would not have known how .... but fortunately I learned many things at Soden."

"Were there people there as ill as he is?"

"Yes, more so."

"It is terrible to me not to see him as he used to be when he was young. .... You can't imagine what a handsome fellow he was; but I did not understand him then."

"Indeed, indeed, I believe you. I feel that we should have been friends," said she, and she turned toward her husband, frightened at what she had said, and the tears shone in her eyes.

"Yes, would have been," he said mournfully. "He is one of those men of whom one can say with reason that he was not meant for this world."

"Meanwhile, we must not forget that we have many days ahead of us; it is time to go to bed," said Kitty, consulting her tiny watch.

CHAPTER XX

the next morning communion was administered to the sick man. Nikolaï prayed fervently during the ceremony. There was such an expression of passionate entreaty and prayer in his great eyes gazing at the sacred image placed on a card-table covered with a colored towel that it was terrible for Levin to look at him so; for he knew that this passionate entreaty and hope made it all the harder for him to part from life, to which he clung so desperately. He knew his brother and the trend of his thoughts; he knew that his skepti-