Anna Karenina

Chapter 18
Levin could not look calmly at his brother; he could not himself be natural
and calm in his presence. When he went in to the sick man, his eyes and his
attention were unconsciously dimmed, and he did not see and did not
distinguish the details of his brother's position. He smelt the awful odor,
saw the dirt, disorder, and miserable condition, and heard the groans, and
felt that nothing could be done to help. It never entered his head to analyze
the details of the sick man's situation, to consider how that body was lying
under the quilt, how those emaciated legs and thighs and spine were lying
huddled up, and whether they could not be made more comfortable,
whether anything could not be done to make things, if not better, at least
less bad. It made his blood run cold when he began to think of all these
details. He was absolutely convinced that nothing could be done to prolong
his brother's life or to relieve his suffering. But a sense of his regarding all
aid as out of the question was felt by the sick man, and exasperated him.
And this made it still more painful for Levin. To be in the sick-room was
agony to him, not to be there still worse. And he was continually, on
various pretexts, going out of the room, and coming in again, because he
was unable to remain alone.
But Kitty thought, and felt, and acted quite differently. On seeing the sick
man, she pitied him. And pity in her womanly heart did not arouse at all
that feeling of horror and loathing that it aroused in her husband, but a
desire to act, to find out all the details of his state, and to remedy them. And
since she had not the slightest doubt that it was her duty to help him, she
had no doubt either that it was possible, and immediately set to work. The
very details, the mere thought of which reduced her husband to terror,
immediately engaged her attention. She sent for the doctor, sent to the
chemist's, set the maid who had come with her and Marya Nikolaevna to
sweep and dust and scrub; she herself washed up something, washed out
something else, laid something under the quilt. Something was by her
directions brought into the sick-room, something else was carried out. She
herself went several times to her room, regardless of the men she met in the
corridor, got out and brought in sheets, pillow cases, towels, and shirts.
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The waiter who was busy with a party of engineers dining in the dining
hall, came several times with an irate countenance in answer to her
summons, and could not avoid carrying out her orders, as she gave them
with such gracious insistence that there was no evading her. Levin did not
approve of all this; he did not believe it would be of any good to the patient.
Above all, he feared the patient would be angry at it. But the sick man,
though he seemed and was indifferent about it, was not angry, but only
abashed, and on the whole as it were interested in what she was doing with
him. Coming back from the doctor to whom Kitty had sent him, Levin, on
opening the door, came upon the sick man at the instant when, by Kitty's
directions, they were changing his linen. The long white ridge of his spine,
with the huge, prominent shoulder blades and jutting ribs and vertebrae,
was bare, and Marya Nikolaevna and the waiter were struggling with the
sleeve of the night shirt, and could not get the long, limp arm into it. Kitty,
hurriedly closing the door after Levin, was not looking that way; but the
sick man groaned, and she moved rapidly towards him.
"Make haste," she said.
"Oh, don't you come," said the sick man angrily. "I'll do it my myself...."
"What say?" queried Marya Nikolaevna. But Kitty heard and saw he was
ashamed and uncomfortable at being naked before her.
"I'm not looking, I'm not looking!" she said, putting the arm in. "Marya
Nikolaevna, you come this side, you do it," she added.
"Please go for me, there's a little bottle in my small bag," she said, turning
to her husband, "you know, in the side pocket; bring it, please, and
meanwhile they'll finish clearing up here."
Returning with the bottle, Levin found the sick man settled comfortably
and everything about him completely changed. The heavy smell was
replaced by the smell of aromatic vinegar, which Kitty with pouting lips
and puffed-out, rosy cheeks was squirting through a little pipe. There was
no dust visible anywhere, a rug was laid by the bedside. On the table stood
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medicine bottles and decanters tidily arranged, and the linen needed was
folded up there, and Kitty's broderie anglaise. On the other table by the
patient's bed there were candles and drink and powders. The sick man
himself, washed and combed, lay in clean sheets on high raised pillows, in
a clean night-shirt with a white collar about his astoundingly thin neck, and
with a new expression of hope looked fixedly at Kitty.
The doctor brought by Levin, and found by him at the club, was not the one
who had been attending Nikolay Levin, as the patient was dissatisfied with
him. The new doctor took up a stethoscope and sounded the patient, shook
his head, prescribed medicine, and with extreme minuteness explained first
how to take the medicine and then what diet was to be kept to. He advised
eggs, raw or hardly cooked, and seltzer water, with warm milk at a certain
temperature. When the doctor had gone away the sick man said something
to his brother, of which Levin could distinguish only the last words: "Your
Katya." By the expression with which he gazed at her, Levin saw that he
was praising her. He called indeed to Katya, as he called her.
"I'm much better already," he said. "Why, with you I should have got well
long ago. How nice it is!" he took her hand and drew it towards his lips, but
as though afraid she would dislike it he changed his mind, let it go, and
only stroked it. Kitty took his hand in both hers and pressed it.
"Now turn me over on the left side and go to bed," he said.
No one could make out what he said but Kitty; she alone understood. She
understood because she was all the while mentally keeping watch on what
he needed.
"On the other side," she said to her husband, "he always sleeps on that side.
Turn him over, it's so disagreeable calling the servants. I'm not strong
enough. Can you?" she said to Marya Nikolaevna.
"I'm afraid not," answered Marya Nikolaevna.
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Terrible as it was to Levin to put his arms round that terrible body, to take
hold of that under the quilt, of which he preferred to know nothing, under
his wife's influence he made his resolute face that she knew so well, and
putting his arms into the bed took hold of the body, but in spite of his own
strength he was struck by the strange heaviness of those powerless limbs.
While he was turning him over, conscious of the huge emaciated arm about
his neck, Kitty swiftly and noiselessly turned the pillow, beat it up and
settled in it the sick man's head, smoothing back his hair, which was
sticking again to his moist brow.
The sick man kept his brother's hand in his own. Levin felt that he meant to
do something with his hand and was pulling it somewhere. Levin yielded
with a sinking heart: yes, he drew it to his mouth and kissed it. Levin,
shaking with sobs and unable to articulate a word, went out of the room.
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