man
and causing his wife distress--he could still go quietly to
sleep. But under the influence of fatigue, a sleepless night,
and the wine he had drunk, his sleep was sound and untroubled.

At five o'clock the creak of a door opening waked him. He jumped
up and looked round. Kitty was not in bed beside him. But there
was a light moving behind the screen, and he heard her steps.

"What is it?...what is it?" he said, half-asleep. "Kitty!
What is it?"

"Nothing," she said, coming from behind the screen with a candle
in her hand. "I felt unwell," she said, smiling a particularly
sweet and meaning smile.

"What? has it begun?" he said in terror. "We ought to send..."
and hurriedly he reached after his clothes.

"No, no," she said, smiling and holding his hand. "It's sure to
be nothing. I was rather unwell, only a little. It's all over
now."

And getting into bed, she blew out the candle, lay down and was
still. Though he thought her stillness suspicious, as though she
were holding her breath, and still more suspicious the expression
of peculiar tenderness and excitement with which, as she came
from behind the screen, she said "nothing," he was so sleepy that
he fell asleep at once. Only later he remembered the stillness
of her breathing, and understood all that must have been passing
in her sweet, precious heart while she lay beside him, not
stirring, in anticipation of the greatest event in a woman's
life. At seven o'clock he was waked by the touch of her hand on
his shoulder, and a gentle whisper. She seemed struggling
between regret at waking him, and the desire to talk to him.

"Kostya, don't be frightened. It's all right. But I fancy....
We ought to send for Lizaveta Petrovna."

The candle was lighted again. She was sitting up in bed, holding
some knitting, which she had been busy upon during the last few
days.

"Please, don't be frightened, it's all right. I'm not a bit
afraid," she said, seeing his scared face, and she pressed his
hand to her bosom and then to her lips.

He hurriedly jumped up, hardly awake, and kept his eyes fixed on
her, as he put on his dressing gown; then he stopped, still
looking at her. He had to go, but he could not tear himself from
her eyes. He thought he loved her face, knew her expression, her
eyes, but never had he seen it like this. How hateful and
horrible he seemed to himself, thinking of the distress he had
caused her yesterday. Her flushed face, f