Page 260 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

performance. The princess was distracted, and did not
know what to do. She felt she had sinned against Kitty.
‘Well, doctor, decide our fate,’ said the princess. ‘Tell
me everything.’

‘Is there hope?’ she meant to say, but her lips quivered,
and she could not utter the question. ‘Well, doctor?’
‘Immediately, princess. I will talk it over with my
colleague, And then I will have the honor of laying my
opinion before you.’
‘So we had better leave you?’
‘As you please.’
The princess went out with a sigh.
When the doctors were left alone, the family doctor
began timidly explaining his opinion, that there was a
commencement of tuberculous trouble, but...and so on.
The celebrated doctor listened to him, and in the middle
of his sentence looked at his big gold watch.
‘Yes,’ said he. ‘But..’
The family doctor respectfully ceased in the middle of
his observations.
‘The commencement of the tuberculous process we are
not, as you are aware, able to define; till there are cavities,
there is nothing definite. But we may suspect it. And there
are indications; malnutrition, nervous excitability, and so

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