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Chapter 19 |
“Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” |
So Levin thought about his wife as he talked to her that evening. |
Levin thought of the text, not because he considered himself “wise and prudent.” |
He did not so consider himself, but he could not help knowing that he had more intellect than his wife and Agafea Mihalovna, and he could not help knowing that when he thought of death, he thought with all the force of his intellect. |
He knew too that the brains of many great men, whose thoughts he had read, had brooded over death and yet knew not a hundredth part of what his wife and Agafea Mihalovna knew about it. |
Different as those two women were, Agafea Mihalovna and Katya, as his brother Nikolay had called her, and as Levin particularly liked to call her now, they were quite alike in this. |
Both knew, without a shade of doubt, what sort of thing life was and what was death, and though neither of them could have answered, and would even not have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, both had no doubt of the significance of this event, and were precisely alike in their way of looking at it, which they shared with millions of people. |
The proof that they knew for a certainty the nature of death lay in the fact that they knew without a second of hesitation how to deal with the dying, and were not frightened of them. |
Levin and other men like him, though they could have said a great deal about death, obviously did not know this since they were afraid of death, and were absolutely at a loss what to do when people were dying. |
If Levin had been alone now with his brother Nikolay, he would have looked at him with terror, and with still greater terror waited, and would not have known what else to do. |
More than that, he did not know what to say, how to look, how to move. |
To talk of outside things seemed to him shocking, impossible, to talk of death and depressing subjects—also impossible. |
To be silent, also impossible. |
“If I look at him he will think I am studying him, I am afraid; |
if I don’t look at him, he’ll think I’m thinking of other things. |
If I walk on tiptoe, he will be vexed; |
to tread firmly, I’m ashamed.” |
Kitty evidently did not think of herself, and had no time to think about herself: she was thinking about him because she knew something, and all went well. |
She told him about herself even and about her wedding, and smiled and sympathized with him and petted him, and talked of cases of recovery and all went well; |
so then she must know. |
The proof that her behavior and Agafea Mihalovna’s was not instinctive, animal, irrational, was that apart from the physical treatment, the relief of suffering, both Agafea Mihalovna and Kitty required for the dying man something else more important than the physical treatment, and something which had nothing in common with physical conditions. |
Agafea Mihalovna, speaking of the man just dead, had said: “Well, thank God, he took the sacrament and received absolution; God grant each one of us such a death.” |
Katya in just the same way, besides all her care about linen, bedsores, drink, found time the very first day to persuade the sick man of the necessity of taking the sacrament and receiving absolution. |
On getting back from the sick-room to their own two rooms for the night, Levin sat with hanging head not knowing what to do. |
Not to speak of supper, of preparing for bed, of considering what they were going to do, he could not even talk to his wife; he was ashamed to. |
Kitty, on the contrary, was more active than usual. |
She was even livelier than usual. |
She ordered supper to be brought, herself unpacked their things, and herself helped to make the beds, and did not even forget to sprinkle them with Persian powder. |
She showed that alertness, that swiftness of reflection which comes out in men before a battle, in conflict, in the dangerous and decisive moments of life—those moments when a man shows once and for all his value, and that all his past has not been wasted but has been a preparation for these moments. |
Everything went rapidly in her hands, and before it was twelve o’clock all their things were arranged cleanly and tidily in her rooms, in such a way that the hotel rooms seemed like home: the beds were made, brushes, combs, looking-glasses were put out, table napkins were spread. |
Levin felt that it was unpardonable to eat, to sleep, to talk even now, and it seemed to him that every movement he made was unseemly. |
She arranged the brushes, but she did it all so that there was nothing shocking in it. |
They could neither of them eat, however, and for a long while they could not sleep, and did not even go to bed. |
“I am very glad I persuaded him to receive extreme unction tomorrow,” she said, sitting in her dressing jacket before her folding looking-glass, combing her soft, fragrant hair with a fine comb. |
“I have never seen it, but I know, mamma has told me, there are prayers said for recovery.” |
“Do you suppose he can possibly recover?” |
said Levin, watching a slender tress at the back of her round little head that was continually hidden when she passed the comb through the front. |
“I asked the doctor; he said he couldn’t live more than three days. |
But can they be sure? |
I’m very glad, anyway, that I persuaded him,” she said, looking askance at her husband through her hair. |
“Anything is possible,” she added with that peculiar, rather sly expression that was always in her face when she spoke of religion. |
Since their conversation about religion when they were engaged neither of them had ever started a discussion of the subject, but she performed all the ceremonies of going to church, saying her prayers, and so on, always with the unvarying conviction that this ought to be so. |
In spite of his assertion to the contrary, she was firmly persuaded that he was as much a Christian as she, and indeed a far better one; and all that he said about it was simply one of his absurd masculine freaks, just as he would say about her broderie anglaise that good people patch holes, but that she cut them on purpose, and so on. |
“Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to manage all this,” said Levin. |
“And ... |
I must own I’m very, very glad you came. |
You are such purity that....” |
He took her hand and did not kiss it (to kiss her hand in such closeness to death seemed to him improper); he merely squeezed it with a penitent air, looking at her brightening eyes. |
“It would have been miserable for you to be alone,” she said, and lifting her hands which hid her cheeks flushing with pleasure, twisted her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it there. |
“No,” she went on, “she did not know how.... |
Luckily, I learned a lot at Soden.” |
“Surely there are not people there so ill?” |
“Worse.” |
“What’s so awful to me is that I can’t see him as he was when he was young. |
You would not believe how charming he was as a youth, but I did not understand him then.” |
“I can quite, quite believe it. |
How I feel that we might have been friends!” she said; and, distressed at what she had said, she looked round at her husband, and tears came into her eyes. |
“Yes, might have been ,” he said mournfully. |
“He’s just one of those people of whom they say they’re not for this world.” |
“But we have many days before us; we must go to bed,” said Kitty, glancing at her tiny watch. |
he pronounced all at once reassuringly, as though all were solved for him. |
“O Lord!” |
he murmured, and sighed deeply. |
Marya Nikolaevna felt his feet. |
“They’re getting cold,” she whispered. |
For a long while, a very long while it seemed to Levin, the sick man lay motionless. |
But he was still alive, and from time to time he sighed. |
Levin by now was exhausted from mental strain. |
He felt that, with no mental effort, could he understand what it was that was right . |
He could not even think of the problem of death itself, but with no will of his own thoughts kept coming to him of what he had to do next; closing the dead man’s eyes, dressing him, ordering the coffin. |
And, strange to say, he felt utterly cold, and was not conscious of sorrow nor of loss, less still of pity for his brother. |
If he had any feeling for his brother at that moment, it was envy for the knowledge the dying man had now that he could not have. |
A long time more he sat over him so, continually expecting the end. |
But the end did not come. |
The door opened and Kitty appeared. |
Levin got up to stop her. |
But at the moment he was getting up, he caught the sound of the dying man stirring. |
“Don’t go away,” said Nikolay and held out his hand. |
Levin gave him his, and angrily waved to his wife to go away. |
With the dying man’s hand in his hand, he sat for half an hour, an hour, another hour. |
He did not think of death at all now. |
He wondered what Kitty was doing; who lived in the next room; whether the doctor lived in a house of his own. |
He longed for food and for sleep. |
He cautiously drew away his hand and felt the feet. |
The feet were cold, but the sick man was still breathing. |
Levin tried again to move away on tiptoe, but the sick man stirred again and said: “Don’t go.” |
The dawn came; the sick man’s condition was unchanged. |
Levin stealthily withdrew his hand, and without looking at the dying man, went off to his own room and went to sleep. |
When he woke up, instead of news of his brother’s death which he expected, he learned that the sick man had returned to his earlier condition. |
He had begun sitting up again, coughing, had begun eating again, talking again, and again had ceased to talk of death, again had begun to express hope of his recovery, and had become more irritable and more gloomy than ever. |
No one, neither his brother nor Kitty, could soothe him. |
He was angry with everyone, and said nasty things to everyone, reproached everyone for his sufferings, and insisted that they should get him a celebrated doctor from Moscow. |
To all inquiries made him as to how he felt, he made the same answer with an expression of vindictive reproachfulness, “I’m suffering horribly, intolerably!” |
The sick man was suffering more and more, especially from bedsores, which it was impossible now to remedy, and grew more and more angry with everyone about him, blaming them for everything, and especially for not having brought him a doctor from Moscow. |
Kitty tried in every possible way to relieve him, to soothe him; but it was all in vain, and Levin saw that she herself was exhausted both physically and morally, though she would not admit it. |
The sense of death, which had been evoked in all by his taking leave of life on the night when he had sent for his brother, was broken up. |
Everyone knew that he must inevitably die soon, that he was half dead already. |
Everyone wished for nothing but that he should die as soon as possible, and everyone, concealing this, gave him medicines, tried to find remedies and doctors, and deceived him and themselves and each other. |
All this was falsehood, disgusting, irreverent deceit. |
And owing to the bent of his character, and because he loved the dying man more than anyone else did, Levin was most painfully conscious of this deceit. |
Levin, who had long been possessed by the idea of reconciling his brothers, at least in face of death, had written to his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, and having received an answer from him, he read this letter to the sick man. |
Sergey Ivanovitch wrote that he could not come himself, and in touching terms he begged his brother’s forgiveness. |
The sick man said nothing. |
“What am I to write to him?” |
said Levin. |
“I hope you are not angry with him?” |
“No, not the least!” |
Nikolay answered, vexed at the question. |
“Tell him to send me a doctor.” |
Three more days of agony followed; the sick man was still in the same condition. |
The sense of longing for his death was felt by everyone now at the mere sight of him, by the waiters and the hotel-keeper and all the people staying in the hotel, and the doctor and Marya Nikolaevna and Levin and Kitty. |
The sick man alone did not express this feeling, but on the contrary was furious at their not getting him doctors, and went on taking medicine and talking of life. |
Only at rare moments, when the opium gave him an instant’s relief from the never-ceasing pain, he would sometimes, half asleep, utter what was ever more intense in his heart than in all the others: “Oh, if it were only the end!” |
or: “When will it be over?” |
His sufferings, steadily growing more intense, did their work and prepared him for death. |
There was no position in which he was not in pain, there was not a minute in which he was unconscious of it, not a limb, not a part of his body that did not ache and cause him agony. |
Even the memories, the impressions, the thoughts of this body awakened in him now the same aversion as the body itself. |
The sight of other people, their remarks, his own reminiscences, everything was for him a source of agony. |
Those about him felt this, and instinctively did not allow themselves to move freely, to talk, to express their wishes before him. |
All his life was merged in the one feeling of suffering and desire to be rid of it. |
There was evidently coming over him that revulsion that would make him look upon death as the goal of his desires, as happiness. |
Hitherto each individual desire, aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by some bodily function giving pleasure. But now no physical craving or suffering received relief, and the effort to relieve them only caused fresh suffering. |
And so all desires were merged in one—the desire to be rid of all his sufferings and their source, the body. |
But he had no words to express this desire of deliverance, and so he did not speak of it, and from habit asked for the satisfaction of desires which could not now be satisfied. |
“Turn me over on the other side,” he would say, and immediately after he would ask to be turned back again as before. |
“Give me some broth. |
Take away the broth. |
Talk of something: why are you silent?” |
And directly they began to talk he would close his eyes, and would show weariness, indifference, and loathing. |
On the tenth day from their arrival at the town, Kitty was unwell. |
She suffered from headache and sickness, and she could not get up all the morning. |
The doctor opined that the indisposition arose from fatigue and excitement, and prescribed rest. |
After dinner, however, Kitty got up and went as usual with her work to the sick man. |
He looked at her sternly when she came in, and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been unwell. |
That day he was continually blowing his nose, and groaning piteously. |
“How do you feel?” |
she asked him. |
“Worse,” he articulated with difficulty. |
“In pain!” |
“In pain, where?” |
“Everywhere.” |
“It will be over today, you will see,” said Marya Nikolaevna. Though it was said in a whisper, the sick man, whose hearing Levin had noticed was very keen, must have heard. |
Levin said hush to her, and looked round at the sick man. |
Nikolay had heard; but these words produced no effect on him. |
His eyes had still the same intense, reproachful look. |
“Why do you think so?” |
Levin asked her, when she had followed him into the corridor. |
“He has begun picking at himself,” said Marya Nikolaevna. |
“How do you mean?” |
“Like this,” she said, tugging at the folds of her woolen skirt. |
Levin noticed, indeed, that all that day the patient pulled at himself, as it were, trying to snatch something away. |
Marya Nikolaevna’s prediction came true. |
Towards night the sick man was not able to lift his hands, and could only gaze before him with the same intensely concentrated expression in his eyes. |
Even when his brother or Kitty bent over him, so that he could see them, he looked just the same. |
Kitty sent for the priest to read the prayer for the dying. |
While the priest was reading it, the dying man did not show any sign of life; his eyes were closed. |
Levin, Kitty, and Marya Nikolaevna stood at the bedside. |
The priest had not quite finished reading the prayer when the dying man stretched, sighed, and opened his eyes. |
The priest, on finishing the prayer, put the cross to the cold forehead, then slowly returned it to the stand, and after standing for two minutes more in silence, he touched the huge, bloodless hand that was turning cold. |
“He is gone,” said the priest, and would have moved away; but suddenly there was a faint stir in the mustaches of the dead man that seemed glued together, and quite distinctly in the hush they heard from the bottom of the chest the sharply defined sounds: |
“Not quite ... |
soon.” |
And a minute later the face brightened, a smile came out under the mustaches, and the women who had gathered round began carefully laying out the corpse. |
The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in Levin that sense of horror in face of the insoluble enigma, together with the nearness and inevitability of death, that had come upon him that autumn evening when his brother had come to him. |
This feeling was now even stronger than before; even less than before did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of death, and its inevitability rose up before him more terrible than ever. But now, thanks to his wife’s presence, that feeling did not reduce him to despair. In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. |
He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. |
The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life. |
The doctor confirmed his suppositions in regard to Kitty. |
Her indisposition was a symptom that she was with child. |
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