telegram last evening?" asked the doctor, biting into a roll.
"No; but I'm going," said Levin. "Will you come in a quarter of an hour?"
"Make it a half."
"On your honor?"
When Levin got home, he found the princess at the door, and they went to Kitty's room together. The princess had tears in her eyes, and her hands trembled. When she saw Levin, she threw her arms round him, and kissed him.
"How is it, Lizavyeta Petrovna, dearie,"[1] said she, seizing the midwife's hand as she came to meet them with a radiant but solicitous face.
"It is going well," said she. "It would be well for her to lie down. Try to persuade her. She would find it easier."
Ever since Levin, on waking, had understood the situation, he had made up his mind, without indulging in anxious thought, or forebodings, crushing down all his anxieties and feelings, firmly, without worrying his wife, but, on the contrary, calming her and sustaining her courage, that he would endure what was before him. Not allowing himself even to think of what was coming or how it might end, judging by answers to his questions, how long it generally lasted. Levin in his imagination prepared to have patience and hold his heart in his hands for five hours, and this seemed to him within the limit of possibihty. But when he returned after his visit to the doctor's, and found Kitty still suffering, again he cried more and more frequently, "Lord, forgive us, and be merciful!" and he was afraid that he could not endure it, so terrible was it to him; thus an hour went by.
And after this another hour passed, and a second, and a third, and the five which he had set as the very ultimate limit of his endurance; and the situation was still the same, and still he was enduring the suspense, because there was nothing else to do except endure, thinking
- ↑ Dushenka, little soul.
