Three more days of torment went by; the sick man was in the same condition. A desire for his death was now felt by everyone who saw him: the servants in the hotel, its proprietor, all the lodgers, the doctor, Marya Nikolaevna, and Levin and Kitty. The sick man alone did not express this feeling, but, on the contrary, was angry that the doctor had not been brought, went on taking medicine and talked about life. Only in rare moments, when the opium made him momentarily forget his incessant suffering, did he sometimes say in half sleep what was stronger in his soul that in anyone else’s: ‘Ah, if only this were the end!’ Or: ‘When will it end!’
Suffering, steadily increasing, did its part in preparing him for death. There was no position in which he did not suffer, no moment when he was oblivious, no part or limb of his body that did not hurt, that did not torment him. Even this body’s memories, impressions and thoughts now evoked in him the same revulsion as the body itself. The sight of other people, their conversation, his own memories - all this was sheer torment to him. Those around him felt it and unconsciously forbade themselves any free movement, conversation, expression of their wishes. His whole life merged into one feeling of suffering and the wish to be rid of it.
A turnabout was obviously taking place that was to make him look at death as the satisfaction of his desires, as happiness. Formerly each separate desire caused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by a bodily function that gave pleasure; but now privation and suffering received no satisfaction, and the attempt at satisfaction caused new suffering. And therefore all his desires merged into one - the desire to be rid of all sufferings and their source, the body. But he had no words to express this desire for liberation, and therefore did not speak of it, but out of habit demanded the satisfaction of desires that could no longer be fulfilled. ‘Turn me on the other side,’ he would say, and immediately afterwards would demand to be turned back as before. ‘Give me some bouillon. Take the bouillon away. Say something, don’t all be silent!’ And as soon as they began talking, he would close his eyes and show fatigue, indifference and disgust.
On the tenth day after their arrival in the town, Kitty fell ill. She had a headache, vomited and could not leave her bed the whole morning.
The doctor explained that the illness came from fatigue and worry, and prescribed inner peace.
After dinner, however, Kitty got up and, bringing her handwork, went to the sick man as usual. He gave her a stern look when she came in, and smiled contemptuously when she said she had been ill. That day he blew his nose incessantly and moaned pitifully.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked him.
‘Worse,’ he said with difficulty. ‘It hurts!’
‘Where does it hurt?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘It will end today, you’ll see,’ Marya Nikolaevna said in a whisper, but loudly enough for the sick man, whose hearing, as Levin had noticed, was very keen, to hear her. Levin shushed her and looked at his brother. Nikolai had heard, but the words made no impression on him. He had the same tense and reproachful look.
‘Why do you think so?’ Levin asked when she followed him out to the corridor.
‘He’s begun plucking at himself,’ said Marya Nikolaevna.
‘How, plucking?’
‘Like this,’ she said, pulling down the folds of her woollen dress. Indeed, he had noticed that the sick man had been clutching at himself all that day, as if wanting to pull something off.
Marya Nikolaevna’s prediction proved correct. By nightfall Nikolai was already too weak to raise his arms and only looked straight ahead without changing the intently concentrated expression of his gaze. Even when his brother or Kitty leaned over him so that he could see them, his look was the same. Kitty sent for a priest to read the prayers for the dying.
While the priest was reading the prayers, the dying man showed no signs of life; his eyes were closed. Levin, Kitty and Marya Nikolaevna stood by the bed. Before the priest finished reading, the dying man stretched out, sighed and opened his eyes. The priest finished the prayers, put the cross to the cold forehead, then slowly wrapped it in his stole and, after standing silently a minute or two longer, he touched the enormous, cold and bloodless hand.
‘It is ended,’ said the priest, and he was about to step aside; but suddenly the dead man’s matted moustache stirred and clearly in the silence there came from the depths of his chest the sharply distinct sounds:
‘Not quite... Soon.’
And a moment later his face brightened, a smile showed under the moustache, and the assembled women began to busy themselves with laying out the deceased.
