Chapter 143 — Anna Karenina

That evening Levin thinks of the text about things hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes, not because he calls himself wise but because he knows he has more intellect than Kitty and Agafea yet less certainty about death. Great minds have brooded on mortality; these two women know without hesitation how to be with the dying and are not frightened. Levin, like other men who talk of death, would be lost alone with Nikolay.

Kitty does not think of herself. She talks to Nikolay about her wedding, smiles, pets him, speaks of recoveries, and persuades him toward sacrament and absolution as Agafea would. Levin sees that their care is not mere instinct: it includes what is more important than physical relief, a shared way of looking at life's end shared with millions. Marya Nikolaevna failed at management; Kitty learned at Soden worse cases than this.

Alone after the sick-room Levin is ashamed to eat or speak; Kitty is more active than ever, unpacking, making beds, sprinkling Persian powder with battle alertness. She is glad she persuaded Nikolay to receive extreme unction tomorrow. Levin mourns the charming youth Nikolay was; Kitty says they might have been friends, and he answers that Nikolay was not for this world. They must go to bed, but death has already reorganized their marriage.