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CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE LAST DAYS OF MARCUS KARENIN
Section 3
The next morning Karenin got up early and watched the sun rise over the mountains, and breakfasted lightly, andthen young Gardener, his secretary, came to consult him upon the spending of his day. Would he care to seepeople? Or was this gnawing pain within him too much to permit him to do that? 'I'd like to talk,' said Karenin. 'There must be all sorts of lively−minded people here. Let them come and gossipwith me. It will distract me−−and I can't tell you how interesting it makes everything that is going on to have seenthe dawn of one's own last day.' 'Your last day!' 'Fowler will kill me.' 'But he thinks not.' 'Fowler will kill me. If he does not he will not leave very much of me. So that this is my last day anyhow, the daysafterwards if they come at all to me, will be refuse. I know....' Gardener was about to speak when Karenin went on again. 'I hope he kills me, Gardener. Don't be−−old−fashioned. The thing I am most afraid of is that last rag of life. Imay just go on−−a scarred salvage of suffering stuff. And then−−all the things I have hidden and kept down ordiscounted or set right afterwards will get the better of me. I shall be peevish. I may lose my grip upon my ownegotism. It's never been a very firm grip. No, no, Gardener, don't say that! You know better, you've had glimpsesof it. Suppose I came through on the other side of this affair, belittled, vain, and spiteful, using the prestige I havegot among men by my good work in the past just to serve some small invalid purpose....' He was silent for a time, watching the mists among the distant precipices change to clouds of light, and drift anddissolve before the searching rays of the sunrise. 'Yes,' he said at last, 'I am afraid of these anaesthetics and these fag ends of life. It's life we are all afraid of.Death!−−nobody minds just death. Fowler is clever−−but some day surgery will know its duty better and not beso anxious just to save something . . . provided only that it quivers. I've tried to hold my end up properly and domy work. After Fowler has done with me I am certain I shall be unfit for work−−and what else is there for me? . .. I know I shall not be fit for work.... 'I do not see why life should be judged by its last trailing thread of vitality.... I know it for the splendid thing itis−−I who have been a diseased creature from the beginning. I know it well enough not to confuse it with itshusks. Remember that, Gardener, if presently my heart fails me and I despair, and if I go through a little phase ofpain and ingratitude and dark forgetfulness before the end.... Don't believe what I may say at the last.... If thefabric is good enough the selvage doesn't matter. It can't matter. So long as you are alive you are just the moment,perhaps, but when you are dead then you are all your life from the first moment to the last....'
The World Set Free
The World Set Free
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