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his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the
other.
The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing,
and had by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle with it.
He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was
on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a
new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Chris-
tian law that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to
forgive and love his enemies; but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness
for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying his head in
the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve,
he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his head, moved
towards him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes.
“That is he. I knew him! Now, forgive me, everyone, forgive me!...
They’ve come again; why don’t they go away?... Oh, take these cloaks
off me!”
The doctor unloosed her hands, carefully laying her on the pillow,
and covered her up to the shoulders. She lay back submissively, and
looked before her with beaming eyes.
“Remember one thing, that I needed nothing but forgiveness, and
I want nothing more.... Why doesn’t HE come?” she said, turning to
the door towards Vronsky. “Do come, do come! Give him your hand.”
Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, again hid
his face in his hands.
“Uncover your face—look at him! He’s a saint,” she said. “Oh!
uncover your face, do uncover it!” she said angrily. “Alexey
Alexandrovitch, do uncover his face! I want to see him.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky’s hands and drew them away
from his face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame
upon it.
“Give him your hand. Forgive him.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, not attempting to re-
strain the tears that streamed from his eyes.
“Thank God, thank God!” she said, “now everything is ready. Only
to stretch my legs a little. There, that’s capital. How badly these
flowers are done—not a bit like a violet,” she said, pointing to the
hangings. “My God, my God! when will it end? Give me some mor-
phine. Doctor, give me some morphine! Oh, my God, my God!”
And she tossed about on the bed.
The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that it was ninety-
nine chances in a hundred it would end in death. The whole day long
there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the pa-
tient lay without consciousness, and almost without pulse.
The end was expected every minute.
Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire,
and Alexey Alexandrovitch meeting him in the hall, said: “Better stay,
she might ask for you,” and himself led him to his wife’s boudoir. To-
wards morning, there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought
and talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness. On the third day it
was the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope. That day
Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sit-
ting, and closing the door sat down opposite him.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of
the position was coming, “I can’t speak, I can’t understand. Spare me!
However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me.”
He would have risen; but Alexey Alexandrovitch took him by the
hand and said:
“I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary. I must explain my