Page 1089 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Levin laid his brother on his back, sat down beside him,
and gazed at his face, holding his breath. The dying man
lay with closed eyes, but the muscles twitched from time
to time on his forehead, as with one thinking deeply and

intensely. Levin involuntarily thought with him of what it
was that was happening to him now, but in spite of all his
mental efforts to go along with him he saw by the
expression of that calm, stern face that for the dying man
all was growing clearer and clearer that was still as dark as
ever for Levin.
‘Yes, yes, so,’ the dying man articulated slowly at
intervals. ‘Wait a little.’ He was silent. ‘Right!’ 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

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