And she tossed about on the bed.

The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that it was ninety-nine chances in a hundred it would end in death.  The whole day long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness.  At midnight the patient lay without consciousness, and almost without pulse.

The end was expected every minute.

Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire, and Alexey Alexandrovitch meeting him in the hall, said:  “Better stay, she might ask for you,” and himself led him to his wife’s boudoir.  Towards morning, there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought and talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness.  On the third day it was the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope.  That day Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and closing the door sat down opposite him.

“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the position was coming, “I can’t speak, I can’t understand.  Spare me!  However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me.”

He would have risen; but Alexey Alexandrovitch took him by the hand and said: 

“I beg you to hear me out; it is necessary.  I must explain my feelings, the feelings that have guided me and will guide me, so that you may not be in error regarding me.  You know I had resolved on a divorce, and had even begun to take proceedings.  I won’t conceal from you that in beginning this I was in uncertainty, I was in misery; I will confess that I was pursued by a desire to revenge myself on you and on her.  When I got the telegram, I came here with the same feelings; I will say more, I longed for her death.  But....”  He paused, pondering whether to disclose or not to disclose his feeling to him.  “But I saw her and forgave her.  And the happiness of forgiveness has revealed to me my duty.  I forgive completely.  I would offer the other cheek, I would give my cloak if my coat be taken.  I pray to God only not to take from me the bliss of forgiveness!”

Tears stood in his eyes, and the luminous, serene look in them impressed Vronsky.

“This is my position:  you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughing-stock of the world, I will not abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you,” Alexey Alexandrovitch went on.  “My duty is clearly marked for me; I ought to be with her, and I will be.  If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but now I suppose it would be better for you to go away.”

He got up, and sobs cut short his words.  Vronsky too was getting up, and in a stooping, not yet erect posture, looked up at him from under his brows.  He did not understand Alexey Alexandrovitch’s feeling, but he felt that it was something higher and even unattainable for him with his view of life.

Chapter 18