Levin realized that she meant his wife, and did not know what answer to make.
`Come along, come along to him!' he said.
But, as soon as he moved, the door of his room opened and Kitty peeped out. Levin crimsoned both from shame and anger at his wife, who had put herself and him in such a difficult position; but Marya Nikolaevna crimsoned still more. She positively shrank together and flushed to the point of tears, and, clutching the ends of her shawl in both hands, twisted them in her red fingers without knowing what to say and what to do.
For the first instant Levin saw an expression of eager curiosity in the eyes with which Kitty looked at this incomprehensible to her, awful woman; 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!' Levin said, looking angrily at a gentleman who walked jauntily at that instant 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 of dismay - `or go on; go, and then come for me,' she said, and went back into the room. Levin went to his brother's room.
He had not in the least expected what he saw and felt in his brother's room. He had expected to find him in the same state of self-deception which he had heard was so frequent with the consumptive, and which had struck him so much during his brother's visit in the autumn. He had expected to find the physical signs of the approach of death more marked - greater weakness, greater emaciation, but still almost the same condition of things.
He had expected himself to feel the same distress at the loss of the brother he loved and the same horror in face of death as he had felt then, only in a greater degree. And he had prepared himself for this; but he found something utterly different.
In a little dirty room with the painted panels of its walls filthy with spittle; with conversation audible from the next room through the thin partition, in a stifling atmosphere saturated with impurities, on a bedstead moved away from the wall, there lay, covered with a quilt, a body. One arm of this body was above the quilt, and the wrist, huge as a rake handle, was attached, inconceivably it seemed, to the thin, long bobbin smooth from the beginning to the middle. The head lay sideways on the pillow. Levin could see the scanty locks wet with sweat on the temples and the tensed, seemingly transparent forehead.
`It cannot be that that fearful body was my brother Nikolai?'
thought Levin. But he went closer, saw the face, and doubt became impossible.
In spite of the terrible change in the face, Levin had only to glance at those eager eyes at his approach, only to catch the faint movement of the mouth under the sticky mustache, to realize the terrible truth that this dead body was his living brother.
The glittering eyes looked sternly and reproachfully at the brother as he drew near. And immediately this glance established a living relationship between living men. Levin immediately felt the reproach in the eyes fixed on him, and felt remorse at his own happiness.
When Konstantin took him by the hand, Nikolai smiled. The smile was faint, scarcely perceptible, and in spite of the smile the stern expression of the eyes was unchanged.
`You did not expect to find me like this,' he articulated with effort.
`Yes... no,' said Levin, hesitating over his words. `How was it you didn't let me know before - that is, at the time of my wedding? I made inquiries in all directions.'
He had to talk so as not to be silent, and he did not know what to say, especially as his brother made no reply, and simply stared without dropping his eyes, and apparently penetrated to the inner meaning of each word. Levin told his brother that his wife had come with him. Nikolai expressed pleasure, but said he was afraid of frightening her by his condition. Asilence followed. Suddenly Nikolai stirred, and began to say something.
Levin expected something of peculiar gravity and importance from the expression of his face, but Nikolai began speaking of his health. He found fault with the doctor, regretting he had not a celebrated Moscow doctor. Levin saw that he still had hopes.
Seizing the first moment of silence, Levin got up, anxious to escape, if only for an instant, from his agonizing emotion, and said that he would go and fetch his wife.
`Very well, and I'll tell Masha to tidy up here. It's dirty and stinking here, I expect. Masha! Clear up the room,' the sick man said with effort. `And when you've cleared up, you go away,' he added, looking inquiringly at his brother.
Levin made no answer. Going out into the corridor, he stopped short. He had said he would fetch his wife, but now, taking stock of the emotion he was feeling, he decided that, on the contrary, he would try 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 ruefully at her husband; then she went up and took him by the elbow with both hands.
`Kostia! Take me to him; it will be easier for us to bear it together.
Only take me, take me to him, please, and go away,' 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 help to you and to him. Please, let me!' she besought her husband, as though the happiness of her life depended on it.
Levin was obliged to agree, and, regaining his composure, and completely forgetting about Marya Nikolaevna by now, he went again in to his brother with Kitty.