Having learned that the doctor was not up yet, Levin, out of all the plans he could think of, settled on the following: Kuzma would go with a note to another doctor; he himself would go to the pharmacy to get the opium, and if, when he came back, the doctor was still not up, he would bribe the footman or, if he refused, awaken the doctor by force at all costs.
At the apothecary’s a lean dispenser, with the same indifference with which the footman had cleaned the glasses, was compressing powders into pills for a waiting coachman and refused him the opium. Trying not to hurry or become angry, Levin began persuading him, giving him the names of the doctor and the midwife and explaining what the opium was needed for. The dispenser asked in German for advice about providing the medicine and, getting approval from behind a partition, took out a bottle and a funnel, slowly poured from the big bottle into a small one, stuck on a label, sealed it, despite Levin’s requests that he not do so, and also wanted to wrap it up. That was more than Levin could bear; he resolutely tore the bottle from his hands and ran out through the big glass door. The doctor was not up yet, and the footman, now occupied with spreading a carpet, refused to wake him. Levin unhurriedly took out a ten-rouble note and, articulating the words slowly, yet wasting no time, handed him the note and explained that Pyotr Dmitrich (how great and significant the previously unimportant Pyotr Dmitrich now seemed to Levin!) had promised to come at any time, that he would certainly not be angry, and therefore he must wake him at once.
The footman consented and went upstairs, inviting Levin into the consulting room.
Through the door Levin could hear the doctor coughing, walking about, washing and saying something. Some three minutes passed; to Levin they seemed more like an hour. He could not wait any longer.
‘Pyotr Dmitrich, Pyotr Dmitrich!’ he said in a pleading voice through the open door. ‘For God’s sake, forgive me. Receive me as you are. It’s already been more than two hours.’
‘Coming, coming!’ replied the voice, and Levin was amazed to hear the doctor chuckle as he said it.
‘For one little moment ...’
‘Coming!’
Two more minutes went by while the doctor put his boots on, and another two minutes while he put his clothes on and combed his hair.
‘Pyotr Dmitrich!’ Levin began again in a pitiful voice; but just then the doctor came out, dressed and combed. ‘These people have no shame,’ thought Levin, ‘combing his hair while we perish!’
‘Good morning!’ the doctor said to him, holding out his hand, as if teasing him with his calmness. ‘Don’t be in a hurry. Well, sir?’
Trying to be as thorough as possible, Levin began to give all the unnecessary details of his wife’s condition, constantly interrupting his story with requests that the doctor come with him at once.
‘Don’t you be in a hurry. You see, I’m probably not even needed, but I promised and so I’ll come if you like. But there’s no hurry. Sit down, please. Would you care for some coffee?’
Levin looked at him, asking with his eyes whether he was laughing at him. But the doctor never even thought of laughing.
‘I know, sir, I know,’ the doctor said, smiling, ‘I’m a family man myself; but in these moments we husbands are the most pathetic people. I have a patient whose husband always runs out to the stable on such occasions.’
‘But what do you think, Pyotr Dmitrich? Do you think it may end well?’
‘All the evidence points to a good outcome.’
‘Then you’ll come now?’ said Levin, looking spitefully at the servant who brought the coffee.
‘In about an hour.’
‘No, for God’s sake!’
‘Well, let me have some coffee first.’
The doctor began on his coffee. The two were silent.
‘The Turks are certainly taking a beating, though. Did you read yesterday’s dispatch?’ the doctor said, chewing his roll.
‘No, I can’t stand it!’ said Levin, jumping up. ‘So you’ll be there in a quarter of an hour?’
‘In half an hour.’
‘Word of honour?’
When Levin returned home, he drove up at the same time as the princess, and together they went to the bedroom door. There were tears in the princess’s eyes and her hands were trembling. Seeing Levin, she embraced him and wept.
‘What news, darling Lizaveta Petrovna?’ she said, seizing the hand of Lizaveta Petrovna, who came out to meet them with a radiant and preoccupied face.
‘It’s going well,’ she said. ‘Persuade her to lie down. It will be easier.’
