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By Root 1348 0

He smelled the terrible stench, saw the filth, the disorder, and the painful posture and groaning, and felt that it was impossible to be of help. It did not even occur to him to look into the details of the sick man’s state, to think of how this body lay there under the blanket, how the emaciated shins, legs, back lay bent there and whether they could not be laid out better, to do something, if not to improve things, at least to make them less bad. A chill went down his spine when he began to think of these details. He was certain beyond doubt that nothing could be done to prolong his life or alleviate his suffering. But the sick man sensed his awareness that he considered all help impossible and was annoyed by it. And that made it still harder for Levin. To be in the sick-room was torture for him, not to be there was still worse. And, on various pretexts, he kept going out and coming back again, unable to stay alone.

But Kitty thought, felt and acted quite differently. At the sight of the sick man, she felt pity for him. And pity in her woman’s soul produced none of the horror and squeamishness it did in her husband, but a need to act, to find out all the details of his condition and help with them. As she did not have the slightest doubt that she had to help him, so she had no doubt that it was possible, and she got down to work at once. Those same details, the mere thought of which horrified her husband, at once attracted her attention. She sent for the doctor, sent to the pharmacy, ordered Marya Nikolaevna and the maid who had come with her to sweep, dust, scrub, washed and rinsed something herself, put something under the blanket. On her orders things were brought in and carried out of the sick man’s room. She went to her room several times, paying no attention to the passing gentlemen she met, to fetch and bring sheets, pillowcases, towels, shirts.

The waiter, who was serving dinner to some engineers in the common room, several times came at her call with an angry face, but could not help carrying out her orders, because she gave them with such gentle insistence that it was simply impossible to walk away from her. Levin disapproved of it all; he did not believe it could be of any use to the sick man. Most of all he feared that his brother would get angry. But, though he seemed indifferent, he did not get angry but only embarrassed, and generally appeared interested in what she was doing to him. Coming back from the doctor, to whom Kitty had sent him, Levin opened the door and found the sick man at the moment when, on Kitty’s orders, his underwear was being changed. The long, white frame of his back, with enormous protruding shoulder blades, the ribs and vertebrae sticking out, was bare, and Marya Nikolaevna and the waiter had got tangled in a shirt sleeve, unable to put the long, dangling arm into it. Kitty, who hastily closed the door behind Levin, was not looking in that direction; but the sick man moaned and she quickly went to him.

‘Hurry up,’ she said.

‘Don’t come here,’ the sick man said crossly, ‘I myself...’

‘What’s that?’ Marya Nikolaevna asked.

But Kitty heard and understood that he found it embarrassing and unpleasant to be naked in front of her.

‘I’m not looking, I’m not looking!’ she said, putting the arm right. ‘Marya Nikolaevna, go around to the other side and put it right,’ she added.

‘Go, please, there’s a vial in my small bag,’ she turned to her husband, ‘you know, in the side pocket. Bring it, please, while they straighten everything up here.’

When he returned with the vial, Levin found the sick man lying down and everything around him completely changed. The heavy smell was replaced by the smell of vinegar and scent, which Kitty, her lips pursed and her red cheeks puffed out, was spraying through a little pipe. No dust could be seen anywhere; there was a rug beside the bed. Vials and a carafe stood neatly on the table, where the necessary linen lay folded, along with Kitty’s broderie anglaise. On the other table, by the sick-bed, were drink, a candle and powders. The sick man himself, washed