Page 1541 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

not even wish for her life now, all he longed for was the
end of this awful anguish.
‘Doctor! what is it? What is it? By God!’ he said,
snatching at the doctor’s hand as he came up.

‘It’s the end,’ said the doctor. And the doctor’s face was
so grave as he said it that Levin took THE END as
meaning her death.
Beside himself, he ran into the bedroom. The first
thing he saw was the face of Lizaveta Petrovna. It was
even more frowning and stern. Kitty’s face he did not
know. In the place where it had been was something that
was fearful in its strained distortion and in the sounds that
came from it. He fell down with his head on the wooden
framework of the bed, feeling that his heart was bursting.
The awful scream never paused, it became still more
awful, and as though it had reached the utmost limit of
terror, suddenly it ceased. Levin could not believe his ears,
but there could be no doubt; the scream had ceased and
he heard a subdued stir and bustle, and hurried breathing,
and her voice, gasping, alive, tender, and blissful, uttered
softly, ‘It’s over!’
He lifted his head. With her hands hanging exhausted
on the quilt, looking extraordinarily lovely and serene, she
looked at him in silence and tried to smile, and could not.

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