Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [291]
‘Katia’s not here?’ he croaked, looking around, when Levin had reluctantly repeated the doctor’s words. ‘Well, then I can say it... I performed that comedy for her. She’s so sweet, but it’s impossible for you and me to deceive ourselves. This is what I believe in,’ he said, and, clutching the vial with his bony hand, he began breathing over it.
Between seven and eight in the evening Levin and his wife were having tea in their room when Marya Nikolaevna, out of breath, came running to them. She was pale, her lips were trembling.
‘He’s dying!’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid he’ll die any minute.’
They both ran to him. He had got up and was sitting on the bed, propped on his elbows, his long back bent and his head hanging low.
‘What do you feel?’ Levin asked in a whisper, after some silence.
‘I feel I’m going,’ Nikolai said with difficulty, but with extreme certainty, slowly squeezing the words out. He did not raise his head but only looked upwards, his gaze not reaching his brother’s face. ‘Katia, go away!’ he also said.
Levin jumped up and in a peremptory whisper made her leave.
‘I’m going,’ he said again.
‘Why do you think so?’ said Levin, just to say something.
‘Because I’m going,’ he repeated, as if he liked the expression. ‘It’s the end.’
Marya Nikolaevna went up to him.
‘Lie down, you’ll feel better,’ she said.
‘I’ll soon lie still,’ he said. ‘Dead,’ he added jeeringly and angrily. ‘Well, lay me down if you like.’
Levin laid his brother on his back, sat down beside him and with bated breath looked at his face. The dying man lay with his eyes closed, but on his forehead the muscles twitched from time to time, as with a man who is thinking deeply and intensely. Levin involuntarily thought with him about what was now being accomplished in him, but, despite all his mental efforts to go with him, he saw from the expression of that calm, stern face and the play of a muscle over one eyebrow, that for the dying man something was becoming increasingly clearer which for him remained as dark as ever.
‘Yes, yes, it’s so,’ the dying man said slowly, distinctly. ‘Wait.’ Again he was silent. ‘So!’ he suddenly drew out peacefully, as if everything had been resolved for him. ‘Oh Lord!’ he said and sighed heavily.
Marya Nikolaevna felt his feet.
‘Getting cold,’ she whispered.
For a long time, a very long time, it seemed to Levin, the sick man lay motionless. But he was still alive and sighed now and then. Levin was weary now from mental effort. He felt that in spite of it all, he could not understand what was so. He felt that he lagged far behind the dying man. He could no longer think about the question of death itself, but thoughts came to him inadvertently of what he was to do now, presently: close his eyes, dress him, order the coffin. And, strangely, he felt completely cold and experienced neither grief, nor loss, nor still less pity for his brother. If he had any feeling for him now, it was rather envy of the knowledge that the dying man now had but that he could not have.
He sat over him like that for a long time waiting for the end. But the end did not come. The door opened and Kitty appeared. Levin stood up to stop her. But as he stood up, he heard the dead man stir.
‘Don’t go,’ said Nikolai, and reached out his hand. Levin gave him his own and angrily waved at his wife to go away.
With the dead man’s hand in his, he sat for half an hour, an hour, another hour. Now he was no longer thinking about death at all. He was thinking about what Kitty was doing, and who lived in the next room, and whether the doctor had his own house. He wanted to eat and sleep. He carefully freed his hand and felt the sick man’s feet. The feet were cold, but the sick man was breathing. Levin was again about to leave on tiptoe, but the sick