Part Five: Chapter 17

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin was lyingill was one of those provincial hotels which are constructed onthe newest model of modern improvements, with the best intentionsof cleanliness, comfort, and even elegance, but owing to thepublic that patronizes them, are with astounding rapiditytransformed into filthy taverns with a pretension of modernimprovement that only makes them worse than the old-fashioned,honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already reached thatstage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform smoking in the entry,supposed to stand for a hall-porter, and the cast-iron, slippery,dark, and disagreeable staircase, and the free and easy waiter ina filthy frock coat, and the common dining room with a dustybouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth, dust, anddisorder everywhere, and at the same time the sort of modernup-to-date self-complacent railway uneasiness of this hotel,aroused a most painful feeling in Levin after their fresh younglife, especially because the impression of falsity made by thehotel was so out of keeping with what awaited them.

　　As is invariably the case, after they had been asked at whatprice they wanted rooms, it appeared that there was not onedecent room for them; one decent room had been taken by theinspector of railroads, another by a lawyer from Moscow, a thirdby Princess Astafieva from the country. There remained only onefilthy room, next to which they promised that another should beempty by the evening. Feeling angry with his wife because whathe had expected had come to pass, which was that at the moment ofarrival, when his heart throbbed with emotion and anxiety to knowhow his brother was getting on, he should have to be seeing afterher, instead of rushing straight to his brother, Levin conductedher to the room assigned them.

　　"Go, do go!" she said, looking at him with timid and guilty eyes.

　　He went out of the door without a word, and at once stumbled overMarya Nikolaevna, who had heard of his arrival and had not daredto go in to see him. She was just the same as when he saw her inMoscow; the same woolen gown, and bare arms and neck, and thesame good-naturedly stupid, pockmarked face, only a littleplumper.

　　"Well, how is he? how is he?"

　　"Very bad. He can't get up. He has kept expecting you. He....Are you...with your wife?"

　　Levin did not for the first moment understand what it wasconfused her, but she immediately enlightened him.

　　"I'll go away. I'll go down to the kitchen," she brought out."Nikolay Dmitrievitch will be delighted. He heard about it, andknows your lady, and remembers her abroad."

　　Levin realized that she meant his wife, and did not know whatanswer to make.

　　"Come along, come along to him!" he said.

　　But as soon as he moved, the door of his room opened and Kittypeeped out. Levin crimsoned both from shame and anger with hiswife, who had put herself and him in such a difficult position;but Marya Nikolaevna crimsoned still more. She positively shranktogether and flushed to the point of tears, and clutching theends of her apron in both hands, twisted them in her red fingerswithout knowing what to say and what to do.

　　For the first instant Levin saw an expression of eager curiosityin the eyes with which Kitty looked at this awful woman, soincomprehensible to her; but it lasted only a single instant.

　　"Well! how is he?" she turned to her husband and then to her.

　　"But one can't go on talking in the passage like this!" Levinsaid, looking angrily at a gentleman who walked jauntily at thatinstant across the corridor, as though about his affairs.

　　"Well then, come in," said Kitty, turning to Marya Nikolaevna,who had recovered herself, but noticing her husband's face ofdismay, "or go on; go, and then come for me," she said, and wentback into the room.

　　Levin went to his brother's room. He had not in the leastexpected what he saw and felt in his brother's room. He hadexpected to find him in the same state of self-deception which hehad heard was so frequent with the consumptive, and which hadstruck him so much during his brother's visit in the autumn. Hehad expected to find the physical signs of the approach of deathmore marked--greater weakness, greater emaciation, but stillalmost the same condition of things. He had expected himself tofeel the same distress at the loss of the brother he loved andthe same horror in face of death as he had felt then, only in agreater degree. And he had prepared himself for this; but hefound something utterly different.

　　In a little dirty room with the painted panels of its wallsfilthy with spittle, and conversation audible through the thinpartition from the next room, in a stifling atmosphere saturatedwith impurities, on a bedstead moved away from the wall, therelay covered with a quilt, a body. One arm of this body was abovethe quilt, and the wrist, huge as a rake-handle, was attached,inconceivably it seemed, to the thin, long bone of the arm smoothfrom the beginning to the middle. The head lay sideways on thepillow. Levin could see the scanty locks wet with sweat on thetemples and tense, transparent-looking forehead.

　　"It cannot be that that fearful body was my brother Nikolay?"thought Levin. But he went closer, saw the face, and doubtbecame impossible. In spite of the terrible change in the face,Levin had only to glance at those eager eyes raised at hisapproach, only to catch the faint movement of the mouth under thesticky mustache, to realize the terrible truth that thisdeath-like body was his living brother.

　　The glittering eyes looked sternly and reproachfully at hisbrother as he drew near. And immediately this glance establisheda living relationship between living men. Levin immediately feltthe reproach in the eyes fixed on him, and felt remorse at hisown happiness.

　　When Konstantin took him by the hand, Nikolay smiled. The smilewas faint, scarcely perceptible, and in spite of the smile thestern expression of the eyes was unchanged.

　　"You did not expect to find me like this," he articulated witheffort.

　　"Yes...no," said Levin, hesitating over his words. "How wasit you didn't let me know before, that is, at the time of mywedding? I made inquiries in all directions."

　　He had to talk so as not to be silent, and he did not know whatto say, especially as his brother made no reply, and simplystared without dropping his eyes, and evidently penetrated to theinner meaning of each word. Levin told his brother that his wifehad come with him. Nikolay expressed pleasure, but said he wasafraid of frightening her by his condition. A silence followed.Suddenly Nikolay stirred, and began to say something. Levinexpected something of peculiar gravity and importance from theexpression of his face, but Nikolay began speaking of his health.He found fault with the doctor, regretting he had not acelebrated Moscow doctor. Levin saw that he still hoped.

　　Seizing the first moment of silence, Levin got up, anxious toescape, if only for an instant, from his agonizing emotion, andsaid that he would go and fetch his wife.

　　"Very well, and I'll tell her to tidy up here. It's dirty andstinking here, I expect. Marya! clear up the room," the sickman said with effort. "Oh, and when you've cleared up, go awayyourself," he added, looking inquiringly at his brother.

　　Levin made no answer. Going out into the corridor, he stoppedshort. He had said he would fetch his wife, but now, takingstock of the emotion he was feeling, he decided that he would tryon the contrary to persuade her not to go in to the sick man."Why should she suffer as I am suffering?" he thought.

　　"Well, how is he?" Kitty asked with a frightened face.

　　"Oh, it's awful, it's awful! What did you come for?" said Levin.

　　Kitty was silent for a few seconds, looking timidly and ruefullyat her husband; then she went up and took him by the elbow withboth hands.

　　"Kostya! take me to him; it will be easier for us to bear ittogether. You only take me, take me to him, please, and goaway," she said. "You must understand that for me to see you,and not to see him, is far more painful. There I might be a helpto you and to him. Please, let me!" she besought her husband, asthough the happiness of her life depended on it.

　　Levin was obliged to agree, and regaining his composure, andcompletely forgetting about Marya Nikolaevna by now, he wentagain in to his brother with Kitty.

　　Stepping lightly, and continually glancing at her husband,showing him a valorous and sympathetic face, Kitty went into thesick-room, and, turning without haste, noiselessly closed thedoor. With inaudible steps she went quickly to the sick man'sbedside, and going up so that he had not to turn his head, sheimmediately clasped in her fresh young hand the skeleton of hishuge hand, pressed it, and began speaking with that softeagerness, sympathetic and not jarring, which is peculiar towomen.

　　"We have met, though we were not acquainted, at Soden," she said."You never thought I was to be your sister?"

　　"You would not have recognized me?" he said, with a radiant smileat her entrance.

　　"Yes, I should. What a good thing you let us know! Not a dayhas passed that Kostya has not mentioned you, and been anxious."

　　But the sick man's interest did not last long.

　　Before she had finished speaking, there had come back into hisface the stern, reproachful expression of the dying man's envy ofthe living.

　　"I am afraid you are not quite comfortable here," she said,turning away from his fixed stare, and looking about the room."We must ask about another room," she said to her husband, "sothat we might be nearer."