Just now, when Levin, under the influence of the thoughts that had come to him, and Agathya Mikhailovna's hint, was in a troubled and uncertain humor, this meeting with his brother which 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 Nikolai had been before in his emaciation and sickliness, now he looked still more emaciated, still more wasted. He was a skeleton covered by 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 Nikolai 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 constantly unwell. 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.
Nikolai said that he had come now to take his 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.
His brother dressed with particular care - a thing he never used to do - combed his scanty, lank hair, and, smiling, went upstairs.
He was in the most affectionate and good-humored mood, just as Levin often remembered him in childhood. He even referred to Sergei Ivanovich without rancor. When he saw Agathya Mikhailovna, he joked with her and asked after the old servants. The news of the death of Parfion Denissich made a painful impression on him. A look of fear crossed his face, but he regained his serenity immediately.
`Of course he was quite old,' he said, and changed the subject.
`Well, I'll spend a month or two with you, and then I'm off to Moscow.
Do you know, Miaghkov has promised me a place there, and I'm going into the service. Now I'm going to arrange my life quite differently,' he went on. `You know I got rid of that woman.'
`Marya Nikolaevna? Why, what for?'
`Oh, she was a horrid woman! She caused me all sorts of annoyances.'
But he did not say what the annoyances were. He could not say that he had driven off Marya Nikolaevna because the tea was weak, and, above all, because she would look after him as though he were an invalid. `Besides, I want to turn over a new leaf completely now. I've done silly things, of course, like everyone else, but money's the last consideration; I don't regret it. So long as there's health - and my health, thank God, is quite restored.'
Levin listened and racked his brains, but could think of nothing to say. Nikolai probably felt the same; he began questioning his brother about his affairs; and Levin was glad to talk about himself, because then he could speak without hypocrisy. He told his brother of his plans and his doings.
His brother listened, but evidently he was not interested.
These two men were so akin, so near each other, that the slightest gesture, the tone of voice, told both more than could be said in words.
Both of them now had only one thought - the illness of Nikolai and the nearness of his death - which stifled all else. But neither of them dared speak of it, and so, whatever they said - without uttering the one thought that filled their minds - was all falsehood. Never had Levin been so glad when the evening was over and it was time to go to bed. Never with any outside person, never on any official visit, had he been so unnatural and false as he was that evening. And the consciousness of this unnaturalness, and the remorse he felt at it, made him even more unnatural. He wanted to weep over his dying, dearly loved brother, and he had to listen and keep on talking of how he meant to live.
As the house was damp, and only the one bedroom had been kept heated, Levin put his brother to sleep in his own bedroom, behind a partition.
His brother got into bed, and whether he slept or did not sleep, tossed about like a sick man, coughed, and when he could not get his throat clear, mumbled something. Sometimes when his breathing was painful, he said, `Oh, my God!' Sometimes when he was choking he muttered angrily, `Ah, the devil!' Levin could not sleep for a long while, hearing him. His thoughts were of the most various kinds, but the end of all his thoughts was the same - death.
Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time presented itself to him with irresistible force. And death, which was here in this loved brother, groaning half-asleep and from habit calling without distinction on God and the devil, was not so remote as it had hitherto seemed to him.
It was in himself, too, that he felt this. If not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, in thirty years - wasn't it all the same? And what was this inevitable death - he did not know, had never thought about it, and, what was more, had not the power, had not the courage to think about it.
`I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten - death.'