Nicholas arrives at Pokrovsk

The cough in the hall is Nicholas, now a skeleton covered with skin, smiling meekly and jerking his long neck as he unwinds his scarf. Levin's disappointment turns to pity at the sight, and to terror when his lips find the dryness of his brother's skin. Nicholas has come for the two thousand roubles owed him from the undivided property, and to touch his native soil like the heroes of old. He is affectionate and cheerful, mentions Sergius Ivanich without bitterness, and flinches once, at the news of a servant's death. He has got rid of Mary Nikolavna — for making his tea too weak, and for waiting on him as an invalid, neither of which he says. They talk about his plans while the thing filling both minds goes unspoken, so that everything said rings false. In the dark, listening to the coughing behind the partition, Levin confronts death for the first time, examines his grey temples and decaying teeth, and remembers throwing pillows with his brother as a child.

Death arrives in Part Three as the answer to the question Levin asked a professor in Part One, and it arrives as a cough behind a partition. Tolstoy has him check his own body in a looking-glass immediately afterwards, which is the only honest response available. The weak tea Nicholas cannot admit to is the chapter's small proof that nobody says the true thing.