His brother got into bed, and whether he slept or did not sleep, tossed about like a sick man, coughed, and when he could not get his throat clear, mumbled something. Sometimes when his breathing was painful, he said, “Oh, my God!” Sometimes when he was choking he muttered angrily, “Ah, the devil!” Levin could not sleep for a long while, hearing him. His thoughts were of the most various, but the end of all his thoughts was the same⁠—death. Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first time presented itself to him with irresistible force. And death, which was here in this loved brother, groaning half asleep and from habit calling without distinction on God and the devil, was not so remote as it had hitherto seemed to him. It was in himself too, he felt that. If not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, in thirty years, wasn’t it all the same! And what was this inevitable death⁠—he did not know, had never thought about it, and what was more, had not the power, had not the courage to think about it.

“I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten⁠—death.”