Page 1096 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘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.

1095 of 1759