could
not get up all the morning.

The doctor opined that the indisposition arose from fatigue and
excitement, and prescribed rest.

After dinner, however, Kitty got up and went as usual with her
work to the sick man. He looked at her sternly when she came in,
and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been unwell.
That day he was continually blowing his nose, and groaning
piteously.

"How do you feel?" she asked him.

"Worse," he articulated with difficulty. "In pain!"

"In pain, where?"

"Everywhere."

"It will be over today, you will see," said Marya Nikolaevna.
Though it was said in a whisper, the sick man, whose hearing
Levin had noticed was very keen, must have heard. Levin said
hush to her, and looked round at the sick man. Nikolay had
heard; but these words produced no effect on him. His eyes had
still the same intense, reproachful look.

"Why do you think so?" Levin asked her, when she had followed him
into the corridor.

"He has begun picking at himself," said Marya Nikolaevna.

"How do you mean?"

"Like this," she said, tugging at the folds of her woolen skirt.
Levin noticed, indeed, that all that day the patient pulled at
himself, as it were, trying to snatch something away.

Marya Nikolaevna's prediction came true. Towards night the sick
man was not able to lift his hands, and could only gaze before
him with the same intensely concentrated expression in his eyes.
Even when his brother or Kitty bent over him, so that he could
see them, he looked just the same. Kitty sent for the priest to
read the prayer for the dying.

While the priest was reading it, the dying man did not show any
sign of life; his eyes were closed. Levin, Kitty, and Marya
Nikolaevna stood at the bedside. The priest had not quite
finished reading the prayer when the dying man stretched, sighed,
and opened his eyes. The priest, on finishing the prayer, put
the cross to the cold forehead, then slowly returned it to the
stand, and after standing for two minutes more in silence, he
touched the huge, bloodless hand that was turning cold.

"He is gone," said the priest, and would have moved away; but
suddenly there was a faint stir in the mustaches of the dead man
that seemed glued together, and quite distinctly in the hush they
heard from the bottom of the chest the sharply defined sounds:

"Not quite...soon."

And a minute later the face brightened, a smile came out under
the mustaches, and the women wh