Page 765 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

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 never thought about it, and what was more, had not
the power, had not the courage to think about it.
‘I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it
must all end; I had forgotten—death.’
He sat on his bed in the darkness, crouched up,
hugging his knees, and holding his breath from the strain
of thought, he pondered. But the more intensely he
thought, the clearer it became to him that it was
indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had
forgotten one little fact—that death will come, and all
ends; that nothing was even worth beginning, and that
there was no helping it anyway. Yes, it was awful, but it
was so.
‘But I am alive still. Now what’s to be done? what’s to
be done?’ he said in despair. He lighted a candle, got up
cautiously and went to the looking-glass, and began
looking at his face and hair. Yes, there were gray hairs
about his temples. He opened his mouth. His back teeth
were beginning to decay. He bared his muscular arms.

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