The Death of Ivan Ilych Read online

kidney and arrest it and support it. So little was needed for

  this, it seemed to him. "No, I'll go to see Peter Ivanovich

  again." [That was the friend whose friend was a doctor.] He rang,

  ordered the carriage, and got ready to go.

  "Where are you going, Jean?" asked his wife with a specially

  sad and exceptionally kind look.

  This exceptionally kind look irritated him. He looked

  morosely at her.

  "I must go to see Peter Ivanovich."

  He went to see Peter Ivanovich, and together they went to see

  his friend, the doctor. He was in, and Ivan Ilych had a long talk

  with him.

  Reviewing the anatomical and physiological details of what in

  the doctor's opinion was going on inside him, he understood it all.

  There was something, a small thing, in the vermiform appendix.

  It might all come right. Only stimulate the energy of one organ

  and check the activity of another, then absorption would take place

  and everything would come right. He got home rather late for

  dinner, ate his dinner, and conversed cheerfully, but could not for

  a long time bring himself to go back to work in his room. At last,

  however, he went to his study and did what was necessary, but the

  consciousness that he had put something aside -- an important,

  intimate matter which he would revert to when his work was done --

  never left him. When he had finished his work he remembered that

  this intimate matter was the thought of his vermiform appendix.

  But he did not give himself up to it, and went to the drawing-room

  for tea. There were callers there, including the examining

  magistrate who was a desirable match for his daughter, and they

  were conversing, playing the piano, and singing. Ivan Ilych, as

  Praskovya Fedorovna remarked, spent that evening more cheerfully

  than usual, but he never for a moment forgot that he had postponed

  the important matter of the appendix. At eleven o'clock he said

  goodnight and went to his bedroom. Since his illness he had slept

  alone in a small room next to his study. He undressed and took up

  a novel by Zola, but instead of reading it he fell into thought,

  and in his imagination that desired improvement in the vermiform

  appendix occurred. There was the absorption and evacuation and the

  re-establishment of normal activity. "Yes, that's it!" he said to

  himself. "One need only assist nature, that's all." He remembered

  his medicine, rose, took it, and lay down on his back watching for

  the beneficent action of the medicine and for it to lessen the

  pain. "I need only take it regularly and avoid all injurious

  influences. I am already feeling better, much better." He began

  touching his side: it was not painful to the touch. "There, I

  really don't feel it. It's much better already." He put out the

  light and turned on his side ... "The appendix is getting better,

  absorption is occurring." Suddenly he felt the old, familiar,

  dull, gnawing pain, stubborn and serious. There was the same

  familiar loathsome taste in his mouth. His heart sand and he felt

  dazed. "My God! My God!" he muttered. "Again, again! And it

  will never cease." And suddenly the matter presented itself in a

  quite different aspect. "Vermiform appendix! Kidney!" he said to

  himself. "It's not a question of appendix or kidney, but of life

  and...death. Yes, life was there and now it is going, going and I

  cannot stop it. Yes. Why deceive myself? Isn't it obvious to

  everyone but me that I'm dying, and that it's only a question of

  weeks, days...it may happen this moment. There was light and now

  there is darkness. I was here and now I'm going there! Where?" A

  chill came over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the

  throbbing of his heart.

  "When I am not, what will there be? There will be nothing.

  Then where shall I be when I am no more? Can this be dying? No,

  I don't want to!" He jumped up and tried to light the candle, felt

  for it with trembling hands, dropped candle and candlestick on the

  floor, and fell back on his pillow.

  "What's the use? It makes no difference," he said to himself,

  staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness. "Death. Yes,

  death. And none of them knows or wishes to know it, and they have

  no pity for me. Now they are playing." (He heard through the door

  the distant sound of a song and its accompaniment.) "It's all the

  same to them, but they will die too! Fools! I first, and they

  later, but it will be the same for them. And now they are

  merry...the beasts!"

  Anger choked him and he was agonizingly, unbearably miserable.

  "It is impossible that all men have been doomed to suffer this

  awful horror!" He raised himself.

  "Something must be wrong. I must calm myself -- must think it

  all over from the beginning." And he again began thinking. "Yes,

  the beginning of my illness: I knocked my side, but I was still

  quite well that day and the next. It hurt a little, then rather

  more. I saw the doctors, then followed despondency and anguish,

  more doctors, and I drew nearer to the abyss. My strength grew

  less and I kept coming nearer and nearer, and now I have wasted

  away and there is no light in my eyes. I think of the appendix --

  but this is death! I think of mending the appendix, and all the

  while here is death! Can it really be death?" Again terror seized

  him and he gasped for breath. He leant down and began feeling for

  the matches, pressing with his elbow on the stand beside the bed.

  It was in his way and hurt him, he grew furious with it, pressed on

  it still harder, and upset it. Breathless and in despair he fell

  on his back, expecting death to come immediately.

  Meanwhile the visitors were leaving. Praskovya Fedorovna was

  seeing them off. She heard something fall and came in.

  "What has happened?"

  "Nothing. I knocked it over accidentally."

  She went out and returned with a candle. He lay there panting

  heavily, like a man who has run a thousand yards, and stared

  upwards at her with a fixed look.

  "What is it, Jean?"

  "No...o...thing. I upset it." ("Why speak of it? She won't

  understand," he thought.)

  And in truth she did not understand. She picked up the stand,

  lit his candle, and hurried away to see another visitor off. When

  she came back he still lay on his back, looking upwards.

  "What is it? Do you feel worse?"

  "Yes."

  She shook her head and sat down.

  "Do you know, Jean, I think we must ask Leshchetitsky to come

  and see you here."

  This meant calling in the famous specialist, regardless of

  expense. He smiled malignantly and said "No." She remained a

  little longer and then went up to him and kissed his forehead.

  While she was kissing him he hated her from the bottom of his

  soul and with difficulty refrained from pushing her away.

  "Good night. Please God you'll sleep."<
br />
  "Yes."

  VI

  Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual

  despair.

  In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only

  was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could

  not grasp it.

  The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius

  is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always

  seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as

  applied to himself. That Caius -- man in the abstract -- was

  mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an

  abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.

  He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and

  Volodya, with the toys, a coachman and a nurse, afterwards with

  Katenka and will all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood,

  boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that

  striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed

  his mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle

  so for Caius? Had he rioted like that at school when the pastry

  was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at

  a session as he did? "Caius really was mortal, and it was right

  for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my

  thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It

  cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."

  Such was his feeling.

  "If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An

  inner voice would have told me so, but there was nothing of the

  sort in me and I and all my friends felt that our case was quite

  different from that of Caius. and now here it is!" he said to

  himself. "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is. How is

  this? How is one to understand it?"

  He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false,

  incorrect, morbid thought away and to replace it by other proper

  and healthy thoughts. But that thought, and not the thought only

  but the reality itself, seemed to come and confront him.

  And to replace that thought he called up a succession of

  others, hoping to find in them some support. He tried to get back

  into the former current of thoughts that had once screened the

  thought of death from him. But strange to say, all that had

  formerly shut off, hidden, and destroyed his consciousness of

  death, no longer had that effect. Ivan Ilych now spent most of his

  time in attempting to re-establish that old current. He would say

  to himself: "I will take up my duties again -- after all I used to

  live by them." And banishing all doubts he would go to the law

  courts, enter into conversation with his colleagues, and sit

  carelessly as was his wont, scanning the crowd with a thoughtful

  look and leaning both his emaciated arms on the arms of his oak

  chair; bending over as usual to a colleague and drawing his papers

  nearer he would interchange whispers with him, and then suddenly

  raising his eyes and sitting erect would pronounce certain words

  and open the proceedings. But suddenly in the midst of those

  proceedings the pain in his side, regardless of the stage the

  proceedings had reached, would begin its own gnawing work. Ivan

  Ilych would turn his attention to it and try to drive the thought

  of it away, but without success. *It* would come and stand before

  him and look at him, and he would be petrified and the light would

  die out of his eyes, and he would again begin asking himself

  whether *It* alone was true. And his colleagues and subordinates

  would see with surprise and distress that he, the brilliant and

  subtle judge, was becoming confused and making mistakes. He would

  shake himself, try to pull himself together, manage somehow to

  bring the sitting to a close, and return home with the sorrowful

  consciousness that his judicial labours could not as formerly hide

  from him what he wanted them to hide, and could not deliver him

  from *It*. And what was worst of all was that *It* drew his

  attention to itself not in order to make him take some action but

  only that he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face:

  look at it and without doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.

  And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for

  consolations -- new screens -- and new screens were found and for

  a while seemed to save him, but then they immediately fell to

  pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It* penetrated them and

  nothing could veil *It*.

  In these latter days he would go into the drawing-room he had

  arranged -- that drawing-room where he had fallen and for the sake

  of which (how bitterly ridiculous it seemed) he had sacrificed his

  life -- for he knew that his illness originated with that knock.

  He would enter and see that something had scratched the polished

  table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was

  the bronze ornamentation of an album, that had got bent. He would

  take up the expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and

  feel vexed with his daughter and her friends for their untidiness -

  - for the album was torn here and there and some of the photographs

  turned upside down. He would put it carefully in order and bend

  the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him

  to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the

  plants. He would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would

  come to help him. They would not agree, and his wife would

  contradict him, and he would dispute and grow angry. But that was

  all right, for then he did not think about *It*. *It* was

  invisible.

  But then, when he was moving something himself, his wife would

  say: "Let the servants do it. You will hurt yourself again." And

  suddenly *It* would flash through the screen and he would see it.

  It was just a flash, and he hoped it would disappear, but he would

  involuntarily pay attention to his side. "It sits there as before,

  gnawing just the same!" And he could no longer forget *It*, but

  could distinctly see it looking at him from behind the flowers.

  "What is it all for?"

  "It really is so! I lost my life over that curtain as I might

  have done when storming a fort. Is that possible? How terrible

  and how stupid. It can't be true! It can't, but it is."

  He would go to his study, lie down, and again be alone with

  *It*: face to face with *It*. And nothing could be done with *It*

  except to look at it and shudder.

  VII

  How it happened it is impossible to say because it came about

  step by step, unnoticed, but in the third month of Ivan Ilych's

  illness, his wife, his daughter, his son, his acquaintances, the

  doctors, the servants, and above all he himself, were aware that

  the whole interest he had for other people was whether he would

  soon vacate his place, and at las
t release the living from the

  discomfort caused by his presence and be himself released from his

  sufferings.

  He slept less and less. He was given opium and hypodermic

  injections of morphine, but this did not relieve him. The dull

  depression he experienced in a somnolent condition at first gave

  him a little relief, but only as something new, afterwards it

  became as distressing as the pain itself or even more so.

  Special foods were prepared for him by the doctors' orders,

  but all those foods became increasingly distasteful and disgusting

  to him.

  For his excretions also special arrangements had to be made,

  and this was a torment to him every time -- a torment from the

  uncleanliness, the unseemliness, and the smell, and from knowing

  that another person had to take part in it.

  But just through his most unpleasant matter, Ivan Ilych

  obtained comfort. Gerasim, the butler's young assistant, always

  came in to carry the things out. Gerasim was a clean, fresh

  peasant lad, grown stout on town food and always cheerful and

  bright. At first the sight of him, in his clean Russian peasant

  costume, engaged on that disgusting task embarrassed Ivan Ilych.

  Once when he got up from the commode to weak to draw up his

  trousers, he dropped into a soft armchair and looked with horror at

  his bare, enfeebled thighs with the muscles so sharply marked on

  them.

  Gerasim with a firm light tread, his heavy boots emitting a

  pleasant smell of tar and fresh winter air, came in wearing a clean

  Hessian apron, the sleeves of his print shirt tucked up over his

  strong bare young arms; and refraining from looking at his sick

  master out of consideration for his feelings, and restraining the

  joy of life that beamed from his face, he went up to the commode.

  "Gerasim!" said Ivan Ilych in a weak voice.

  "Gerasim started, evidently afraid he might have committed

  some blunder, and with a rapid movement turned his fresh, kind,

  simple young face which just showed the first downy signs of a

  beard.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "That must be very unpleasant for you. You must forgive me.

  I am helpless."

  "Oh, why, sir," and Gerasim's eyes beamed and he showed his

  glistening white teeth, "what's a little trouble? It's a case of

  illness with you, sir."

  And his deft strong hands did their accustomed task, and he

  went out of the room stepping lightly. five minutes later he as

  lightly returned.

  Ivan Ilych was still sitting in the same position in the

  armchair.

  "Gerasim," he said when the latter had replaced the freshly-

  washed utensil. "Please come here and help me." Gerasim went up

  to him. "Lift me up. It is hard for me to get up, and I have sent

  Dmitri away."

  Gerasim went up to him, grasped his master with his strong

  arms deftly but gently, in the same way that he stepped -- lifted

  him, supported him with one hand, and with the other drew up his

  trousers and would have set him down again, but Ivan Ilych asked to

  be led to the sofa. Gerasim, without an effort and without

  apparent pressure, led him, almost lifting him, to the sofa and

  placed him on it.

  "That you. How easily and well you do it all!"

  Gerasim smiled again and turned to leave the room. But Ivan

  Ilych felt his presence such a comfort that he did not want to let

  him go.

  "One thing more, please move up that chair. No, the other one

  -- under my feet. It is easier for me when my feet are raised."

  Gerasim brought the chair, set it down gently in place, and

  raised Ivan Ilych's legs on it. It seemed to Ivan Ilych that he

  felt better while Gerasim was holding up his legs.

  "It's better when my legs are higher," he said. "Place that

  cushion under them."

  Gerasim did so. He again lifted the legs and placed them, and

  again Ivan Ilych felt better while Gerasim held his legs. When he

  set them down Ivan Ilych fancied he felt worse.

  "Gerasim," he said. "Are you busy now?"

  "Not at all, sir," said Gerasim, who had learnt from the

  townsfolk how to speak to gentlefolk.

  "What have you still to do?"

  "What have I to do? I've done everything except chopping the