Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
The inn where Nikolaï Levin was dying was one of those establishments which are found in governmental cities, built on a new and improved model, with the very best regard for neatness, comfort, and even elegance, but which the public frequenting them cause to degenerate with extraordinary rapidity into filthy grog-shops with pretensions to modern improvements and by reason of this very pretentiousness become far worse than old- fashioned inns which are simply filthy. This inn had already reached this condition. The soldier in dirty uniform, who served as Swiss, and was smoking a cigarette in the vestibule; the perforated cast-iron staircase, gloomy and unpleasant; the impertinent waiter in a dirty black coat; the common "hall" with its table decorated with a dusty bouquet of wax flowers; the dirt, dust, and slovenliness everywhere and at the same time a certain new restlessness and self-sufficiency characteristic of these railway days—everything about this inn produced a feeling of deep depression in the Levins after their recent happiness and especially from the fact that the wretched condition of the inn was wholly irreconcilable with what was waiting for them.
As usual, after they had been asked what priced rooms they wanted, it proved that the best rooms were taken,—one by the supervisor of the railroad, another by a lawyer from Moscow, the third by Princess Astavyeva from the country. One disorderly bedroom was left for them, with the promise that they should have the one next to it, when evening came. Levin took his wife to it, vexed to find his prognostications so speedily realized, and impatient because when his heart was overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of how he should find his brother, he was obliged to get settled instead of hurrying to his brother.
"Go, go!" said Kitty, with a melancholy look of contrition.
He left her without saying a word, and just outside the door he ran against Marya Nikolayevna, who had just heard of his arrival but had not ventured to knock at his room. She had not changed since he last saw her in Moscow. She wore the same woolen dress, without collar or cuffs, and her pock-marked face expressed the same unfailing good nature.
"Well! How is he? tell me!"
"Very bad. He doesn't sit up, and he is all the time asking for you. You.... she.... Is your wife with you?"
Levin at first did not see why she seemed confused; but she immediately explained herself.
"I am going to the kitchen," she went on to say; "he will be glad; he remembers seeing her abroad."
Levin perceived[1] that she meant his wife, and did not know what to say.
"Come," said he, "let us go to him."
But they had not gone a step before the chamber door opened and Kitty appeared. Levin grew red with vexation and mortification to see his wife in such a predicament; but Marya Nikolayevna was still more confused, and crouching back against the wall ready to cry, she caught the ends of her apron and wound it around her red hands, not knowing what to say or to do.
For an instant Levin saw an expression of lively curiosity in the look with which Kitty regarded this terrible creature, so incomprehensible to her; it lasted but a moment.
"Tell me! what is it? how is he?" she asked, turning to her husband, and then to the woman.
"We cannot talk in the corridor," replied Levin, looking with an expression of annoyance at a gentleman who, with leisurely steps, as if on his own business bent, was coming along the corridor just at this time.
"Well, come into the room, then," said Kitty, addressing the apologetic Marya Nikolayevna; then seeing the look of alarm on her husband's face, she added, "Or rather go—go, and send for me," and she turned back to the room.
Levin hastened to his brother.
He had never expected to see and experience what now he saw and experienced. He expected to find him in that state of illusion so common to consumptives, and which had so struck him during his visit the preceding autumn. He expected to find him with the physical indications of approaching death more distinct than before—greater feebleness, greater emaciation, but practically about the same state of things. He expected that he should have the same feeling of pity for this well-beloved brother, and of horror at the presence of death,—only intensified. He was quite prepared for this. But what he saw was absolutely different.
In a little, close, dirty, ill-smelling room, the paneled walls of which were covered with red stains of expectoration, separated by a thin partition from another room, where conversation was going on, he saw lying on a wretched bed moved out from the wall a body covered with a counterpane. One hand huge as a rake, and holding in a strange way by the end a sort of long and slender bobbin, was on the outside of the counterpane. The head, resting on the pillow, showed the thin hair glued to his temples, and a strained, almost transparent brow.
"Can it be that this horrible body is my brother Nikolaï?" thought Levin; but as he came near, he saw his face and the doubt ceased. In spite of the terrible change that had taken place, it was enough to glance at the lively eyes turned toward him as he entered, or the motions of his mouth under the long mustache, to recognize the frightful truth that this dead body was indeed his living brother.
Nikolaï's gleaming eyes gazed at his brother with a stern and reproachful look. His look seemed to bring living relations between living beings. Konstantin instantly felt the reproach in the eyes fixed on him and regret for his own happiness.
When Konstantin took his brother's hand, Nikolai smiled; but the smile was slight, almost imperceptible, and in spite of it the stern expression of his eyes did not change.
"You did not expect to find me so," said he, with effort.
"Yes.... no," replied Levin, with confusion. "Why didn't you let me know sooner, before my marriage? I had inquiries made for you everywhere."
He wanted to keep on speaking, so as to avoid a painful silence; but he did not know what to say, the more as his brother looked at him without replying, and seemed to be weighing each one of his words. Finally he told him that his wife had come with him, and Nikolaï appeared delighted, adding, however, that he was afraid he should frighten her by his condition. A silence followed; suddenly Nikolaï began to speak, and Levin felt by the expression of his face that he had something of importance to tell him, but he spoke only of his health. He blamed his doctor, and regretted that he could not have consulted a celebrity in Moscow, and Levin perceived that he was still hopeful.
Taking advantage of the first moment of silence, Levin got up, wishing to escape for a little while at least from these cruel impressions, and said he would go and fetch his wife.
"Good! I will have things put in order here. It is dirty here and smells bad, I imagine. Masha, you attend to this," said the sick man, with effort. "Yes! and when you have put things to rights, go away," he added, looking at his brother questioningly.
Levin made no reply, but as soon as he had reached the corridor he paused. He had promised to bring his wife, but now as he recalled what he himself had suffered, he made up his mind to persuade her that she had best not make this visit. "Why torment her as I am tormented?" he asked himself.
"Well, how is it?" asked Kitty, with frightened face.
"Oh, it is horrible, horrible! Why did you come?"
Kitty looked timidly, compassionately, at her husband for a few seconds without speaking; then going to him, she put both hands on his arm.
"Kostia, take me to him; it will be easier for both of us. Take me and leave me with him, please. Can't you see that it is far harder for me to see you and not to see him? Perhaps I shall be useful to him, and to you also. I beg of you, let me go."
She besought him as if the happiness of her life depended on it.
Levin was obliged to let her go with him, but in his haste he completely forgot all about Marya Nikolayevna.
Kitty, walking lightly and showing her husband a courageous and sympathetic face, stepped quietly into the sick man's room and shut the door noiselessly. She went with light, quick steps up to the bed, and sat down so that the sick man would not have to turn his head, and with her cool, soft hand she took the dying man's enormous bony hand, pressed it, and employing that tact peculiar to women, of showing sympathy without wounding, she began to speak to him with a gentle cheerfulness.
"We saw each other at Soden without becoming acquainted; you did not think then that I should ever become your sister."
"You would not have known me, would you?" he said; his face was lighted up with a smile when he saw her come in.
"Oh, yes, indeed. How good it was of you to send for us! Not a day has passed without Kostia speaking of you. He has been very anxious about you."
But the sick man's animation lasted only a short time.
Kitty had not finished speaking before his face again assumed that expression of stern, reproachful envy which the dying feel for the living.
"I am afraid that you are not very comfortable here," said she, avoiding the look which he gave her, and examining the room.
"We must ask for another room, and be nearer to him," she said to her husband.
- ↑ Marya Nikolayevna in speaking of Nikolaï Levin as well as of Kitty uses the third person plural, a form of exaggerated obsequiousness common with persons addressing their superiors.