Anna Karenina - Part 8

The flash of lightning, the crash of thunder, and the

instantaneous chill that ran through him were all merged for

Levin in one sense of terror.

"My God! my God! not on them!" he said.

And though he thought at once how senseless was his prayer that

they should not have been killed by the oak which had fallen now,

he repeated it, knowing that he could do nothing better than

utter this senseless prayer.

Running up to the place where they usually went, he did not find

them there.

They were at the other end of the copse under an old lime-tree;

they were calling him. Two figures in dark dresses (they had

been light summer dresses when they started out) were standing

bending over something. It was Kitty with the nurse. The rain

was already ceasing, and it was beginning to get light when Levin

reached them. The nurse was not wet on the lower part of her

dress, but Kitty was drenched through, and her soaked clothes

clung to her. Though the rain was over, they still stood in the

same position in which they had been standing when the storm

broke. Both stood bending over a perambulator with a green

umbrella.

"Alive? Unhurt? Thank God!" he said, splashing with his soaked

boots through the standing water and running up to them.

Kitty's rosy wet face was turned towards him, and she smiled

timidly under her shapeless sopped hat.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? I can't think how you can be so

reckless!" he said angrily to his wife.

"It wasn't my fault, really. We were just meaning to go, when he

made such a to-do that we had to change him. We were just..."

Kitty began defending herself.

Mitya was unharmed, dry, and still fast asleep.

"Well, thank God! I don't know what I'm saying!"

They gathered up the baby's wet belongings; the nurse picked up

the baby and carried it. Levin walked beside his wife, and,

penitent for having been angry, he squeezed her hand when the

nurse was not looking.