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lamp chimneys. Trying not to get flurried or out of temper, Levin
mentioned the names of the doctor and midwife, and explaining what
the opium was needed for, tried to persuade him. The assistant in-
quired in German whether he should give it, and receiving an affirma-
tive reply from behind the partition, he took out a bottle and a funnel,
deliberately poured the opium from a bigger bottle into a little one,
stuck on a label, sealed it up, in spite of Levin’s request that he would
not do so, and was about to wrap it up too. This was more than Levin
could stand; he took the bottle firmly out of his hands, and ran to the
big glass doors. The doctor was not even now getting up, and the
footman, busy now in putting down the rugs, refused to wake him.
Levin deliberately took out a ten rouble note, and, careful to speak
slowly, though losing no time over the business, he handed him the
note, and explained that Pyotr Dmitrievitch (what a great and impor-
tant personage he seemed to Levin now, this Pyotr Dmitrievitch, who
had been of so little consequence in his eyes before!) had promised to
come at any time; that he would certainly not be angry! and that he
must therefore wake him at once.
The footman agreed, and went upstairs, taking Levin into the wait-
ing room.
Levin could hear through the door the doctor coughing, moving
about, washing, and saying something. Three minutes passed; it seemed
to Levin that more than an hour had gone by. He could not wait any
longer.
“Pyotr Dmitrievitch, Pyotr Dmitrievitch!” he said in an imploring
voice at the open door. “For God’s sake, forgive me! See me as you are.
It’s been going on more than two hours already.”
“I a minute; in a minute!” answered a voice, and to his amazement
Levin heard that the doctor was smiling as he spoke.
“For one instant.”
“In a minute.”
Two minutes more passed while the doctor was putting on his
boots, and two minutes more while the doctor put on his coat and
combed his hair.
“Pyotr Dmitrievitch!” Levin was beginning again in a plaintive
voice, just as the doctor came in dressed and ready. “These people
have no conscience,” thought Levin. “Combing his hair, while we’re
dying!”
“Good morning!” the doctor said to him, shaking hands, and, as it
were, teasing him with his composure. “There’s no hurry. Well now?”
Trying to be as accurate as possible Levin began to tell him every
unnecessary detail of his wife’s condition, interrupting his account re-
peatedly with entreaties that the doctor would come with him at once.
“Oh, you needn’t be in any hurry. You don’t understand, you know.
I’m certain I’m not wanted, still I’ve promised, and if you like, I’ll come.
But there’s no hurry. Please sit down; won’t you have some coffee?”
Levin stared at him with eyes that asked whether he was laughing
at him; but the doctor had no notion of making fun of him.
“I know, I know,” the doctor said, smiling; “I’m a married man my-
self; and at these moments we husbands are very much to be pitied.
I’ve a patient whose husband always takes refuge in the stables on
such occasions.”
“But what do you think, Pyotr Dmitrievitch? Do you suppose it
may go all right?”
“Everything points to a favorable issue.”
“So you’ll come immediately?” said Levin, looking wrathfully at the
servant who was bringing in the coffee.
“In an hour’s time.”