“All Desires Were Merged in One”: A Description of Death in Anna Karenina

“Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish.” Psalm 49:12

Over the course of my sabbatical I had the privilege of reading Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, Anna Karenina. To say that I enjoyed the book would be true, but not quite sufficient. I would say rather that the book stirred me. If one were to ask me to summarize the book, I would find it a near impossible exercise. Not only because of the sheer length of the book, but because of its depth. Tolstoy’s depictions of the inner thoughts, desires, and drives of human beings was absolutely stunning.

One of the passages that stirred me was Tolstoy’s depiction of death’s approach as the merging of all desires into one as it was experienced by Levin’s brother Nikolay:

“His sufferings, steadily growing more intense, did their work and prepared him for death. There was no position in which he was not in pain, there was not a minute in which he was unconscious of it, not a limb, not a part of his body that did not ache and cause him agony. Even the memories, the impressions, the thoughts of this body awakened in him now the same aversion as the body itself. The sight of other people, their remarks, his own reminiscences, everything was for him a source of agony. Those about him felt this, and instinctively did not allow themselves to move freely, to talk, to express their wishes before him. All his life was merged in the one feeling of suffering and desire to be rid of it.

There was evidently coming over him that revulsion that would make him look upon death as the goal of his desires, as happiness. Hitherto each individual desire, aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by some bodily function giving pleasure. But now no physical craving or suffering received relief, and the effort to relieve them only caused fresh suffering. And so all desires were merged in one–the desire to be rid of all his sufferings and their source, the body. But he had no words to express this desire of deliverance, and so he did not speak of it, and from habit asked for the satisfaction of desires which could not now be satisfied.”

Anna Karenina, book 5 chapter 20, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett

Never having been on the deathbed, it’s difficult for me to objectively evaluate the accuracy of Tolstoy’s description. But his writing drew me into the experience of something that, while I have not experienced it personally, I believe I now better understand.

Our lives are largely driven by the attempt to satisfy our desires. But as our sufferings do their work, all our desires merge into the one desire of being free from suffering, free from the body’s ailments that afflict us. And when after a period of prolonged suffering death finally does come, it comes mercifully as a welcome visitor. Death is welcomed not because it is good, but because it satisfies the last desire.

Herein is the end of every man, every beast, every creature with breath. Neither our prior accomplishments, nor our wealth, nor our perceived indispensability, nor even our love of life can prevent this ultimate merging of all our desires into one. “Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish,” says the Psalmist. To ignore the fact of death, and the judgment which follows, is the height of all folly and the chief excuse of every wasted life.