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 "If you would lie down, it would be easier for you," said she.

"Soon I shall be lying down," he remarked softly,—"dead," he added, with angry irony. "Well, lay me back, if you will."

Levin laid his brother down on his back, took a seat near him, and, hardly able to breathe, gazed into his face. The dying man lay with his eyes shut, but the muscles of his forehead twitched from time to time as if he were in deep thought. Levin involuntarily tried to comprehend what was taking place in him, but in spite of all the efforts of his mind to accompany his brother's thoughts, he saw by the expression of his calm stern face, and the play of the muscles above his eyebrows, that his brother perceived mysteries hidden from him.

"Yes .... yes .... so," the dying man murmured slowly, with long pauses; "lay me down!" Then long silence followed. "So!" said he suddenly, with an expression of content as if all had been explained for him. "O Lord!" he exclaimed, and he sighed heavily.

Marya Nikolayevna felt of his feet. "They are growing cold," she said in a low voice.

Long, very long, as it seemed to Levin, the sick man remained motionless; but he was still alive, and sighed from time to time.

Weary from the mental strain. Levin felt that in spite of all his efforts he could not understand what his brother meant to express by the exclamation "So," He seemed to be far away from the dying man; he could no longer think of the mystery of death; the most incongruous ideas came into his mind. He asked himself what he was going to do;—to close his eyes, dress him, order the coffin? Strange! he felt perfectly cold and indifferent; he did not experience any sense of grief or loss, or even the least pity for his brother; the principal feeling that he had was one almost of envy for the knowledge which the dying man would soon have and which he himself could not have.

Long he waited by his bedside, expecting the end;