Page 1071 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

might be a help to you and to him. Please, let me!’ she
besought her husband, as though the happiness of her life
depended on it.
Levin was obliged to agree, and regaining his

composure, and completely forgetting about Marya
Nikolaevna by now, he went again in to his brother with
Kitty.
Stepping lightly, and continually glancing at her
husband, showing him a valorous and sympathetic face,
Kitty went into the sick-room, and, turning without haste,
noiselessly closed the door. With inaudible steps she went
quickly to the sick man’s bedside, and going up so that he
had not to turn his head, she immediately clasped in her
fresh young hand the skeleton of his huge hand, pressed it,
and began speaking with that soft eagerness, sympathetic
and not jarring, which is peculiar to women.
‘We have met, though we were not acquainted, at
Soden,’ she said. ‘You never thought I was to be your
sister?’
‘You would not have recognized me?’ he said, with a
radiant smile at her entrance.
‘Yes, I should. What a good thing you let us know!
Not a day has passed that Kostya has not mentioned you,
and been anxious.’

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