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.