Chapter 31

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 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