Page 1080 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

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

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