Anna Karenina - Part 3

Running halfway down the staircase, Levin caught a sound he

knew, a familiar cough in the hall. But he heard it indistinctly

through the sound of his own footsteps, and hoped he was

mistaken. Then he caught sight of a long, bony, familiar figure,

and now it seemed there was no possibility of mistake; and yet he

still went on hoping that this tall man taking off his fur cloak

and coughing was not his brother Nikolay.

Levin loved his brother, but being with him was always a torture.

Just now, when Levin, under the influence of the thoughts that

had come to him, and Agafea Mihalovna's hint, was in a troubled

and uncertain humor, the meeting with his brother that he had to

face seemed particularly difficult. Instead of a lively, healthy

visitor, some outsider who would, he hoped, cheer him up in his

uncertain humor, he had to see his brother, who knew him through

and through, who would call forth all the thoughts nearest his

heart, would force him to show himself fully. And that he was

not disposed to do.

Angry with himself for so base a feeling, Levin ran into the

hall; as soon as he had seen his brother close, this feeling of

selfish disappointment vanished instantly and was replaced by

pity. Terrible as his brother Nikolay had been before in his

emaciation and sickliness, now he looked still more emaciated,

still more wasted. He was a skeleton covered with skin.

He stood in the hall, jerking his long thin neck, and pulling the

scarf off it, and smiled a strange and pitiful smile. When he

saw that smile, submissive and humble, Levin felt something

clutching at his throat.

"You see, I've come to you," said Nikolay in a thick voice, never

for one second taking his eyes off his brother's face. "I've

been meaning to a long while, but I've been unwell all the time.

Now I'm ever so much better," he said, rubbing his beard with his

big thin hands.

"Yes, yes!" answered Levin. And he felt still more frightened

when, kissing him, he felt with his lips the dryness of his

brother's skin and saw close to him his big eyes, full of a

strange light.

A few weeks before, Konstantin Levin had written to his brother

that through the sale of the small part of the property, that had

remained undivided, there was a sum of about two thousand roubles

to come to him as his share.

Nikolay said that he had come now to take this money and, what

was more important, to stay a while in the old nest, to get in

touch with the earth, so as to renew his strength like the heroes

of old for the work that lay before him. In spite of his

exaggerated stoop, and the emaciation that was so striking from

his height, his movements were as rapid and abrupt as ever.

Levin led him into his study.