Anna Karenina - Part 5

While the priest was reading it, the dying man did not show any

sign of life; his eyes were closed. Levin, Kitty, and Marya

Nikolaevna stood at the bedside. The priest had not quite

finished reading the prayer when the dying man stretched, sighed,

and opened his eyes. The priest, on finishing the prayer, put

the cross to the cold forehead, then slowly returned it to the

stand, and after standing for two minutes more in silence, he

touched the huge, bloodless hand that was turning cold.

"He is gone," said the priest, and would have moved away; but

suddenly there was a faint stir in the mustaches of the dead man

that seemed glued together, and quite distinctly in the hush they

heard from the bottom of the chest the sharply defined sounds: "Not quite...soon."

And a minute later the face brightened, a smile came out under

the mustaches, and the women who had gathered round began

carefully laying out the corpse.

The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in

Levin that sense of horror in face of the insoluble enigma,

together with the nearness and inevitability of death, that had

come upon him that autumn evening when his brother had come to

him. This feeling was now even stronger than before; even less

than before did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of

death, and its inevitability rose up before him more terrible

than ever. But now, thanks to his wife's presence, that feeling

did not reduce him to despair. In spite of death, he felt the

need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair,

and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still

stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved,

had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had

arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.

The doctor confirmed his suppositions in regard to Kitty. Her

indisposition was a symptom that she was with child.