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, toward 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. `Alexei Alexandrovich, do uncover his face! I want to see him.'

Alexei Alexandrovich 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.'

Alexei Alexandrovich gave him his hand, not attempting to restrain 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 morphine. 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 ninety-nine chances in a hundred it would end in death. The whole day long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the patient 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 Alexei Alexandrovich, meeting him in the hall, said: `Better stay, she might ask for you,' and himself led him to his wife's boudoir. Toward 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 Alexei Alexandrovich went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and, closing the door, sat down opposite him.

`Alexei Alexandrovich,' said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the situation 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 Alexei Alexandrovich took him by the hand and said:

`I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary. I must explain my feelings, the feelings that have guided me, and will guide me, so that you may not be in error regarding me. You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had even begun to take proceedings. I won't conceal from you that in beginning this I was in uncertainty, I was in misery; I will confess that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her. When I got the telegram, I came here with the same feelings; I will say more - I longed for her death. But...' He paused, pondering whether to disclose or not to disclose his feelings. `But I saw her and forgave her. And the happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my duty. I forgive completely. I would offer the other cheek, I would give my cloak if my coat be taken. I pray to God only not to take from me the bliss of forgiveness!'

Tears stood in his eyes, and the luminous, serene look in them impressed Vronsky.

`This is my position: you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughingstock of the world - I will not abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you,' Alexei Alexandrovich went on. `My duty is