she raised
her hands to her face. She had seen her husband.

"No, no!" she began. "I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of
death. Alexey, come here. I am in a hurry, because I've no
time, I've not long left to live; the fever will begin directly
and I shall understand nothing more. Now I understand, I
understand it all, I see it all!"

Alexey Alexandrovitch's wrinkled face wore an expression of
agony; he took her by the hand and tried to say something, but he
could not utter it; his lower lip quivered, but he still went on
struggling with his emotion, and only now and then glanced at
her. And each time he glanced at her, he saw her eyes gazing at
him with such passionate and triumphant tenderness as he had
never seen in them.

"Wait a minute, you don't know...stay a little, stay!..." She
stopped, as though collecting her ideas. "Yes," she began; "yes,
yes, yes. This is what I wanted to say. Don't be surprised at
me. I'm still the same.... But there is another woman in me,
I'm afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you,
and could not forget about her that used to be. I'm not that
woman. Now I'm my real self, all myself. I'm dying now, I know
I shall die, ask him. Even now I feel--see here, the weights on
my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers--see how huge
they are! But this will soon all be over.... Only one thing I
want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I'm terrible, but my nurse
used to tell me; the holy martyr--what was her name? She was
worse. And I'll go to Rome; there's a wilderness, and there I
shall be no trouble to any one, only I'll take Seryozha and the
little one.... No, you can't forgive me! I know, it can't be
forgiven! No, no, go away, you're too good!" She held his hand
in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other.

The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing,
and had by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle
with it. He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous
agitation was on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that
gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did
not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life
trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive and love his
enemies; but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness for his
enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying his head in
the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through th