Page 1097 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘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

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