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character in general, Levin was struck by what was revealed now, when
suddenly all disguises were thrown off and the very kernel of her soul
shone in her eyes. And in this simplicity and nakedness of her soul,
she, the very woman he loved in her, was more manifest than ever. She
looked at him, smiling; but all at once her brows twitched, she threw up
her head, and going quickly up to him, clutched his hand and pressed
close up to him, breathing her hot breath upon him. She was in pain
and was, as it were, complaining to him of her suffering. And for the
first minute, from habit, it seemed to him that he was to blame. But in
her eyes there was a tenderness that told him that she was far from
reproaching him, that she loved him for her sufferings. “If not I, who is
to blame for it?” he thought unconsciously, seeking someone respon-
sible for this suffering for him to punish; but there was no one respon-
sible. She was suffering, complaining, and triumphing in her suffer-
ings, and rejoicing in them, and loving them. He saw that something
sublime was being accomplished in her soul, but what? He could not
make it out. It was beyond his understanding.
“I have sent to mamma. You go quickly to fetch Lizaveta Petrovna
...Kostya!... Nothing, it’s over.”
She moved away from him and rang the bell.
“Well, go now; Pasha’s coming. I am all right.”
And Levin saw with astonishment that she had taken up the
knitting she had brought in in the night and begun working at it again.
As Levin was going out of one door, he heard the maid-servant
come in at the other. He stood at the door and heard Kitty giving exact
directions to the maid, and beginning to help her move the bedstead.
He dressed, and while they were putting in his horses, as a hired
sledge was not to be seen yet, he ran again up to the bedroom, not on
tiptoe, it seemed to him, but on wings. Two maid-servants were care-
fully moving something in the bedroom.
Kitty was walking about knitting rapidly and giving directions.
“I’m going for the doctor. They have sent for Lizaveta Petrovna,
but I’ll go on there too. Isn’t there anything wanted? Yes, shall I go to
Dolly’s?”
She looked at him, obviously not hearing what he was saying.
“Yes, yes. Do go,” she said quickly, frowning and waving her hand
to him.
He had just gone into the drawing room, when suddenly a plain-
tive moan sounded from the bedroom, smothered instantly. He stood
still, and for a long while he could not understand.
“Yes, that is she,” he said to himself, and clutching at his head he
ran downstairs.
“Lord have mercy on us! pardon us! aid us!” he repeated the words
that for some reason came suddenly to his lips. And he, an unbeliever,
repeated these words not with his lips only. At that instant he knew
that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his reason,
of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning
to God. All of that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was
he to turn if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, and his
love?
The horse was not yet ready, but feeling a peculiar concentration of
his physical forces and his intellect on what he had to do, he started off
on foot without waiting for the horse, and told Kouzma to overtake
him.
At the corner he met a night cabman driving hurriedly. In the little
sledge, wrapped in a velvet cloak, sat Lizaveta Petrovna with a kerchief
round her head. “Thank God! thank God!” he said, overjoyed to
recognize her little fair face which wore a peculiarly serious, even stern