Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 31
servants. The news of the death of Parfen Denisitch made a painful impression on
him. A look of fear crossed his face, but he regained his serenity immediately.
“Of course he was quite old,” he said, and changed the subject. “Well, I’ll spend
a month or two with you, and then I’m off to Moscow. Do you know, Myakov has
promised me a place there, and I’m going into the service. Now I’m going to arrange
my life quite differently,” he went on. “You know I got rid of that woman.”
“Marya Nikolaevna? Why, what for?”
“Oh, she was a horrid woman! She caused me all sorts of worries.” But he did
not say what the annoyances were. He could not say that he had cast off Marya
Nikolaevna because the tea was weak, and, above all, because she would look after
him, as though he were an invalid.
“Besides, I want to turn over a new leaf completely now. I’ve done silly things,
of course, like everyone else, but money’s the last consideration; I don’t regret it. So
long as there’s health, and my health, thank God, is quite restored.”
Levin listened and racked his brains, but could think of nothing to say. Nikolay
probably felt the same; he began questioning his brother about his affairs; and Levin
was glad to talk about himself, because then he could speak without hypocrisy. He
told his brother of his plans and his doings.
His brother listened, but evidently he was not interested by it.
These two men were so akin, so near each other, that the slightest gesture, the tone
of voice, told both more than could be said in words.
Both of them now had only one thought–the illness of Nikolay and the nearness
of his death–which stifled all else. But neither of them dared to speak of it, and
so whatever they said– not uttering the one thought that filled their minds–was all
falsehood. Never had Levin been so glad when the evening was over and it was
time to go to bed. Never with any outside person, never on any official visit had
he been so unnatural and false as he was that evening. And the consciousness of
this unnaturalness, and the remorse he felt at it, made him even more unnatural. He
wanted to weep over his dying, dearly loved brother, and he had to listen and keep
on talking of how he meant to live.
As the house was damp, and only one bedroom had been kept heated, Levin put
his brother to sleep in his own bedroom behind a screen.
His brother got into bed, and whether he slept or did not sleep, tossed about like a
sick man, coughed, and when he could not get his throat clear, mumbled something.
Sometimes when his breathing was painful, he said, “Oh, my God!” Sometimes
when he was choking he muttered angrily, “Ah, the devil!” Levin could not sleep
for a long while, hearing him. His thoughts were of the most various, but the end
of all his thoughts was the same– death. Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first
time presented itself to him with irresistible force. And death, which was here in
this loved brother, groaning half asleep and from habit calling without distinction
on God and the devil, was not so remote as it had hitherto seemed to him. It was
in himself too, he felt that. If not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, in thirty years,
wasn’t it all the same! And what was this inevitable death–he did not know, had
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