ing hall, came several times with an irate countenance in
answer to her summons, and could not avoid carrying out her
orders, as she gave them with such gracious insistence that there
was no evading her. Levin did not approve of all this; he did
not believe it would be of any good to the patient. Above all,
he feared the patient would be angry at it. But the sick man,
though he seemed and was indifferent about it, was not angry, but
only abashed, and on the whole as it were interested in what she
was doing with him. Coming back from the doctor to whom Kitty
had sent him, Levin, on opening the door, came upon the sick man
at the instant when, by Kitty's directions, they were changing
his linen. The long white ridge of his spine, with the huge,
prominent shoulder blades and jutting ribs and vertebrae, was
bare, and Marya Nikolaevna and the waiter were struggling with
the sleeve of the night shirt, and could not get the long, limp
arm into it. Kitty, hurriedly closing the door after Levin, was
not looking that way; but the sick man groaned, and she moved
rapidly towards him.

"Make haste," she said.

"Oh, don't you come," said the sick man angrily. "I'll do it my
myself...."

"What say?" queried Marya Nikolaevna. But Kitty heard and saw he
was ashamed and uncomfortable at being naked before her.

"I'm not looking, I'm not looking!" she said, putting the arm in.
"Marya Nikolaevna, you come this side, you do it," she added.

"Please go for me, there's a little bottle in my small bag," she
said, turning to her husband, "you know, in the side pocket;
bring it, please, and meanwhile they'll finish clearing up here."

Returning with the bottle, Levin found the sick man settled
comfortably and everything about him completely changed. The
heavy smell was replaced by the smell of aromatic vinegar, which
Kitty with pouting lips and puffed-out, rosy cheeks was squirting
through a little pipe. There was no dust visible anywhere, a rug
was laid by the bedside. On the table stood medicine bottles and
decanters tidily arranged, and the linen needed was folded up
there, and Kitty's _broderie anglaise_. On the other table by the
patient's bed there were candles and drink and powders. The sick
man himself, washed and combed, lay in clean sheets on high
raised pillows, in a clean night-shirt with a white collar about
his astoundingly thin neck, and with a new expression of hope
looked fixedly at Kitty.

The doctor bro