Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/940

 "What's the matter?" he asked, still only half awake. "Kitty, what is it?"

"Nothing," answered she, coming from behind the screen with a candle in her hand, and smiling at him with a peculiarly sweet and significant smile; "I don't feel quite well."

"What! Is this the beginning? Must we send?" exclaimed he in alarm, and he began to dress as quickly as possible.

"No, no," said she, smiling, and holding his hand; "it 's nothing; I did not feel quite well; it's all right now."

Going back to bed, she put out the light, and lay down again, keeping perfectly still, although her very stillness and the way she, as it were, held her breath, were suspicious, and still more so the expression of peculiar tenderness and alertness with which, as she came out from behind the screen, she said to him, "it's nothing"; still, he was so overcome by drowsiness that he immediately went to sleep again.

It was only afterward that he realized the calmness of her spirit, and appreciated all that was passing in her dear, gentle heart as she lay thus motionless near him, awaiting the most solemn moment of a woman's life.

About seven o'clock he was awakened by her hand touching his shoulder and her low whisper. She apparently hesitated between the fear of waking him and the wish to speak to him.

"Kostia, don't be afraid, it's nothing; but I think.... Lizavyeta Petrovna had better be called."

The candle was again lighted. She was sitting on the bed, holding the knitting on which she had been at work during the last few days.

"Please don't be alarmed. I 'm not in the least afraid," said she, seeing her husband's terrified face; and she pressed his hand to her breast, then to her lips.

Levin leaped from his bed, and, unconscious of himself, without taking his eyes off his wife for a moment, hurried on his dressing-gown. It was necessary for him to go, but he could not tear himself away. Dearly