esitations...
and all this for me, for me----'

'Yes, yes, all for you, because they love you, Ah, Dmitri! How strange
it is! I think I have talked to you of it before, but it doesn't matter,
I like to repeat it, and you will like to hear it. When I saw you the
first time----'

'Why are there tears in your eyes?' Insarov interrupted her.

'Tears? Are there?' She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. 'Oh, what
a silly boy! He doesn't know yet that people weep from happiness. I
wanted to tell you: when I saw you the first time, I saw nothing special
in you, really. I remember, Shubin struck me much more at first, though
I never loved him, and as for Andrei Petrovitch--oh, there was a moment
when I thought: isn't this he? And with you there was nothing of that
sort; but afterwards--afterwards--you took my heart by storm!'

'Have pity on me,' began Insarov. He tried to get up, but dropped down
on to the sofa again at once.

'What's the matter with you?' inquired Elena anxiously.

'Nothing.... I am still rather weak. I am not strong enough yet for such
happiness.'

'Then sit quietly. Don't dare to move, don't get excited,' she added,
threatening him with her finger. 'And why have you left off your
dressing-gown? It's too soon to begin to be a dandy! Sit down and I will
tell you stories. Listen and be quiet. To talk much is bad for you after
your illness.'

She began to talk to him about Shubin, about Kurnatovsky, and what she
had been doing for the last fortnight, of how war seemed, judging from
the newspapers, inevitable, and so directly he was perfectly well again,
he must, without losing a minute, make arrangements for them to start.
All this she told him sitting beside him, leaning on his shoulder....

He listened to her, listened, turning pale and red. Sometimes he tried
to stop her; suddenly he drew himself up.

'Elena,' he said to her in a strange, hard voice 'leave me, go away.'

'What?' she replied in bewilderment 'You feel ill?' she added quickly.

'No... I'm all right... but, please, leave me now.'

'I don't understand you. You drive me away?.. What are you doing?' she
said suddenly; he had bent over from the sofa almost to the ground,
and was pressing her feet to his lips. 'Don't do that, Dmitri....
Dmitri----'

He got up.

'Then leave me! You see, Elena, when I was taken ill, I did not lose
consciousness at first; I knew I was on the edge of the abyss; even in
the fever, in delirium I knew, I