`A dream?' repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled the peasant of his dream.

`Yes, a dream,' she said. `It's a long while since I dreamed it. I dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get something there, to find out something; you know how it is in dreams,' she said, her eyes wide with horror; `and in the bedroom, in the corner, stood something.'

`Oh, what nonsense! How can you believe...'

But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying was too important to her.

`And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant with a disheveled beard - a little man, and dreadful. I wanted to run away, but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling there with his hands...'

She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face. And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terror filling his soul.

`He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, and, you know, he burred: Il faut le battre, le fer, le broyer, le pétrir.... And in my horror I tried to wake up, and woke up... but woke up in the dream. And I began asking myself what it meant. And Kornei said to me: ``In childbirth you'll die, ma'am, you'll die....' And I woke up.'

`What nonsense, what nonsense!' said Vronsky; but he felt himself that there was no conviction in his voice.

`But don't let's talk of it. Ring the bell, I'll have tea. And stay a little, now; it's not long I shall...'

But all at once she stopped. The expression of her face instantaneously changed. Horror and excitement were suddenly replaced by a look of soft, solemn, blissful attention. He could not comprehend the meaning of the change. She was listening to the stirring of the new life within her.