Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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sound of the dying man stirring.
"Dont go away," said Nikolay and held out his hand. Levin gave
him his, and angrily waved to his wife to go away.
With the dying mans hand in his hand, he sat for half an hour,
an hour, another hour. He did not think of death at all now. He
wondered what Kitty was doing; who lived in the next room;
whether the doctor lived in a house of his own. He longed for
food and for sleep. He cautiously drew away his hand and felt
the feet. The feet were cold, but the sick man was still
breathing. Levin tried again to move away on tiptoe, but the
sick man stirred again and said: "Dont go."
* * * * * * * *
The dawn came; the sick mans condition was unchanged. Levin
stealthily withdrew his hand, and without looking at the dying
man, went off to his own room and went to sleep. When he woke
up, instead of news of his brothers death which he expected, he
learned that the sick man had returned to his earlier condition.
He had begun sitting up again, coughing, had begun eating again,
talking again, and again had ceased to talk of death, again had
begun to express hope of his recovery, and had become more
irritable and more gloomy than ever. No one, neither his brother
nor Kitty, could soothe him. He was angry with everyone, and
said nasty things to everyone, reproached everyone for his
sufferings, and insisted that they should get him a celebrated
doctor from Moscow. To all inquiries made him as to how he felt,
he made the same answer with an expression of vindictive
reproachfulness, "Im suffering horribly, intolerably!"
The sick man was suffering more and more, especially from
bedsores, which it was impossible now to remedy, and grew more
and more angry with everyone about him, blaming them for
everything, and especially for not having brought him a doctor
from Moscow. Kitty tried in every possible way to relieve him,
to soothe him; but it was all in vain, and Levin saw that she
herself was exhausted both physically and morally, though she
would not admit it. The sense of death, which had been evoked in
all by his taking leave of life on the night when he had sent for
his brother, was broken up. Everyone knew that he must
inevitably die soon, that he was half dead already. Everyone
wished for nothing but that he should die as soon as possible,
and everyone, concealing this, gave him medicines, tried to find
remedies and doctors, and deceived him and themselves and each
other. All this was falsehood, disgusting, irreverent deceit.
And owing to the bent of his character, and because he loved the
dying man more than anyone else did, Levin was most painfully
conscious of this deceit.
Levin, who had long been possessed by the idea of reconciling his
brothers, at least in face of death, had written to his brother,
Sergey Ivanovitch, and having received an answer from him, he
read this letter to the sick man. Sergey Ivanovitch wrote that
he could not come himself, and in touching terms he begged his
brothers forgiveness.
The sick man said nothing.
"What am I to write to him?" said Levin. "I hope you are not
angry with him?"
"No, not the least!" Nikolay answered, vexed at the question.
"Tell him to send me a doctor."
Three more days of agony followed; the sick man was still in the
same condition. The sense of longing for his death was felt by
everyone now at the mere sight of him, by the waiters and the
hotel-keeper and all the people staying in the hotel, and the
doctor and Marya Nikolaevna and Levin and Kitty. The sick man
alone did not express this feeling, but on the contrary was
furious at their not getting him doctors, and went on taking
medicine and talking of life. Only at rare moments, when the
opium gave him an instants relief from the never-ceasing pain,
he would sometimes, half asleep, utter what was ever more intense
in his heart than in all the others: "Oh, if it were only the
end!" or: "When will it be over?"
His sufferings, steadily growing more intense, did their work and
prepared him for death. There was no position in which he
Anna Karenina page 288 Anna Karenina page 290
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