The Death of Ivan Ilych Read online

logs for tomorrow."

  "Then hold my legs up a bit higher, can you?"

  "Of course I can. Why not?" and Gerasim raised his master's

  legs higher and Ivan Ilych thought that in that position he did not

  feel any pain at all.

  "And how about the logs?"

  "Don't trouble about that, sir. There's plenty of time."

  Ivan Ilych told Gerasim to sit down and hold his legs, and

  began to talk to him. And strange to say it seemed to him that he

  felt better while Gerasim held his legs up.

  After that Ivan Ilych would sometimes call Gerasim and get him

  to hold his legs on his shoulders, and he liked talking to him.

  Gerasim did it all easily, willingly, simply, and with a good

  nature that touched Ivan Ilych. Health, strength, and vitality in

  other people were offensive to him, but Gerasim's strength and

  vitality did not mortify but soothed him.

  What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie,

  which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but

  was simply ill, and the only need keep quiet and undergo a

  treatment and then something very good would result. He however

  knew that do what they would nothing would come of it, only still

  more agonizing suffering and death. This deception tortured him --

  their not wishing to admit what they all knew and what he knew, but

  wanting to lie to him concerning his terrible condition, and

  wishing and forcing him to participate in that lie. Those lies --

  lies enacted over him on the eve of his death and destined to

  degrade this awful, solemn act to the level of their visitings,

  their curtains, their sturgeon for dinner -- were a terrible agony

  for Ivan Ilych. And strangely enough, many times when they were

  going through their antics over him he had been within a

  hairbreadth of calling out to them: "Stop lying! You know and I

  know that I am dying. Then at least stop lying about it!" But he

  had never had the spirit to do it. The awful, terrible act of his

  dying was, he could see, reduced by those about him to the level of

  a casual, unpleasant, and almost indecorous incident (as if someone

  entered a drawing room defusing an unpleasant odour) and this was

  done by that very decorum which he had served all his life long.

  He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to

  grasp his position. Only Gerasim recognized it and pitied him.

  And so Ivan Ilych felt at ease only with him. He felt comforted

  when Gerasim supported his legs (sometimes all night long) and

  refused to go to bed, saying: "Don't you worry, Ivan Ilych. I'll

  get sleep enough later on," or when he suddenly became familiar and

  exclaimed: "If you weren't sick it would be another matter, but as

  it is, why should I grudge a little trouble?" Gerasim alone did

  not lie; everything showed that he alone understood the facts of

  the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them, but

  simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled master. Once

  when Ivan Ilych was sending him away he even said straight out:

  "We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?"

  -- expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome,

  because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do

  the same for him when his time came.

  Apart from this lying, or because of it, what most tormented

  Ivan Ilych was that no one pitied him as he wished to be pitied.

  At certain moments after prolonged suffering he wished most of all

  (though he would have been ashamed to confess it) for someone to

  pity him as a sick child is pitied. He longed to be petted and

  comforted. he knew he was an important functionary, that he had a

  beard turning grey, and that therefore what he long for was

  impossible, but still he longed for it. and in Gerasim's attitude

  towards him there was something akin to what he wished for, and so

  that attitude comforted him. Ivan Ilych wanted to weep, wanted to

  be petted and cried over, and then his colleague Shebek would come,

  and instead of weeping and being petted, Ivan Ilych would assume a

  serious, severe, and profound air, and by force of habit would

  express his opinion on a decision of the Court of Cassation and

  would stubbornly insist on that view. This falsity around him and

  within him did more than anything else to poison his last days.

  VIII

  It was morning. He knew it was morning because Gerasim had

  gone, and Peter the footman had come and put out the candles, drawn

  back one of the curtains, and begun quietly to tidy up. Whether it

  was morning or evening, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, it

  was all just the same: the gnawing, unmitigated, agonizing pain,

  never ceasing for an instant, the consciousness of life inexorably

  waning but not yet extinguished, the approach of that ever dreaded

  and hateful Death which was the only reality, and always the same

  falsity. What were days, weeks, hours, in such a case?

  "Will you have some tea, sir?"

  "He wants things to be regular, and wishes the gentlefolk to

  drink tea in the morning," thought ivan Ilych, and only said "No."

  "Wouldn't you like to move onto the sofa, sir?"

  "He wants to tidy up the room, and I'm in the way. I am

  uncleanliness and disorder," he thought, and said only:

  "No, leave me alone."

  The man went on bustling about. Ivan Ilych stretched out his

  hand. Peter came up, ready to help.

  "What is it, sir?"

  "My watch."

  Peter took the watch which was close at hand and gave it to

  his master.

  "Half-past eight. Are they up?"

  "No sir, except Vladimir Ivanovich" (the son) "who has gone to

  school. Praskovya Fedorovna ordered me to wake her if you asked

  for her. Shall I do so?"

  "No, there's no need to." "Perhaps I's better have some tea,"

  he thought, and added aloud: "Yes, bring me some tea."

  Peter went to the door, but Ivan Ilych dreaded being left

  alone. "How can I keep him here? Oh yes, my medicine." "Peter,

  give me my medicine." "Why not? Perhaps it may still do some

  good." He took a spoonful and swallowed it. "No, it won't help.

  It's all tomfoolery, all deception," he decided as soon as he

  became aware of the familiar, sickly, hopeless taste. "No, I can't

  believe in it any longer. But the pain, why this pain? If it

  would only cease just for a moment!" And he moaned. Peter turned

  towards him. "It's all right. Go and fetch me some tea."

  Peter went out. Left alone Ivan Ilych groaned not so much

  with pain, terrible thought that was, as from mental anguish.

  Always and for ever the same, always these endless days and nights.

  If only it would come quicker! If only *what* would come quicker?

  Death, darkness?...No, no! anything rather than death!

  when Peter returned with the tea on a tray, Ivan Ilych stared

  at him for a time in perplexity, not realizing who
and what he was.

  Peter was disconcerted by that look and his embarrassment brought

  Ivan Ilych to himself.

  "Oh, tea! All right, put it down. Only help me to wash and

  put on a clean shirt."

  And Ivan Ilych began to wash. With pauses for rest, he washed

  his hands and then his face, cleaned his teeth, brushed his hair,

  looked in the glass. He was terrified by what he saw, especially

  by the limp way in which his hair clung to his pallid forehead.

  While his shirt was being changed he knew that he would be

  still more frightened at the sight of his body, so he avoided

  looking at it. Finally he was ready. He drew on a dressing-gown,

  wrapped himself in a plaid, and sat down in the armchair to take

  his tea. For a moment he felt refreshed, but as soon as he began

  to drink the tea he was again aware of the same taste, and the pain

  also returned. He finished it with an effort, and then lay down

  stretching out his legs, and dismissed Peter.

  Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea

  of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and

  always the same. When alone he had a dreadful and distressing

  desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others

  present it would be still worse. "Another dose of morphine--to

  lose consciousness. I will tell him, the doctor, that he must

  think of something else. It's impossible, impossible, to go on

  like this."

  An hour and another pass like that. But now there is a ring

  at the door bell. Perhaps it's the doctor? It is. He comes in

  fresh, hearty, plump, and cheerful, with that look on his face that

  seems to say: "There now, you're in a panic about something, but

  we'll arrange it all for you directly!" The doctor knows this

  expression is out of place here, but he has put it on once for all

  and can't take it off -- like a man who has put on a frock-coat in

  the morning to pay a round of calls.

  The doctor rubs his hands vigorously and reassuringly.

  "Brr! How cold it is! There's such a sharp frost; just let

  me warm myself!" he says, as if it were only a matter of waiting

  till he was warm, and then he would put everything right.

  "Well now, how are you?"

  Ivan Ilych feels that the doctor would like to say: "Well,

  how are our affairs?" but that even he feels that this would not

  do, and says instead: "What sort of a night have you had?"

  Ivan Ilych looks at him as much as to say: "Are you really

  never ashamed of lying?" But the doctor does not wish to

  understand this question, and Ivan Ilych says: "Just as terrible

  as ever. The pain never leaves me and never subsides. If only

  something ... "

  "Yes, you sick people are always like that.... There, now I

  think I am warm enough. Even Praskovya Fedorovna, who is so

  particular, could find no fault with my temperature. Well, now I

  can say good-morning," and the doctor presses his patient's hand.

  Then dropping his former playfulness, he begins with a most

  serious face to examine the patient, feeling his pulse and taking

  his temperature, and then begins the sounding and auscultation.

  Ivan Ilych knows quite well and definitely that all this is

  nonsense and pure deception, but when the doctor, getting down on

  his knee, leans over him, putting his ear first higher then lower,

  and performs various gymnastic movements over him with a

  significant expression on his face, Ivan Ilych submits to it all as

  he used to submit to the speeches of the lawyers, though he knew

  very well that they were all lying and why they were lying.

  The doctor, kneeling on the sofa, is still sounding him when

  Praskovya Fedorovna's silk dress rustles at the door and she is

  heard scolding Peter for not having let her know of the doctor's

  arrival.

  She comes in, kisses her husband, and at once proceeds to

  prove that she has been up a long time already, and only owing to

  a misunderstanding failed to be there when the doctor arrived.

  Ivan Ilych looks at her, scans her all over, sets against her

  the whiteness and plumpness and cleanness of her hands and neck,

  the gloss of her hair, and the sparkle of her vivacious eyes. He

  hates her with his whole soul. And the thrill of hatred he feels

  for her makes him suffer from her touch.

  Her attitude towards him and his diseases is still the same.

  Just as the doctor had adopted a certain relation to his patient

  which he could not abandon, so had she formed one towards him --

  that he was not doing something he ought to do and was himself to

  blame, and that she reproached him lovingly for this -- and she

  could not now change that attitude.

  "You see he doesn't listen to me and doesn't take his medicine

  at the proper time. And above all he lies in a position that is no

  doubt bad for him -- with his legs up."

  She described how he made Gerasim hold his legs up.

  The doctor smiled with a contemptuous affability that said:

  "What's to be done? These sick people do have foolish fancies of

  that kind, but we must forgive them."

  When the examination was over the doctor looked at his watch,

  and then Praskovya Fedorovna announced to Ivan Ilych that it was of

  course as he pleased, but she had sent today for a celebrated

  specialist who would examine him and have a consultation with

  Michael Danilovich (their regular doctor).

  "Please don't raise any objections. I am doing this for my own

  sake," she said ironically, letting it be felt that she was doing

  it all for his sake and only said this to leave him no right to

  refuse. He remained silent, knitting his brows. He felt that he

  was surrounded and involved in a mesh of falsity that it was hard

  to unravel anything.

  Everything she did for him was entirely for her own sake, and

  she told him she was doing for herself what she actually was doing

  for herself, as if that was so incredible that he must understand

  the opposite.

  At half-past eleven the celebrated specialist arrived. Again

  the sounding began and the significant conversations in his

  presence and in another room, about the kidneys and the appendix,

  and the questions and answers, with such an air of importance that

  again, instead of the real question of life and death which now

  alone confronted him, the question arose of the kidney and appendix

  which were not behaving as they ought to and would now be attached

  by Michael Danilovich and the specialist and forced to amend their

  ways.

  The celebrated specialist took leave of him with a serious

  though not hopeless look, and in reply to the timid question Ivan

  Ilych, with eyes glistening with fear and hope, put to him as to

  whether there was a chance of recovery, said that he could not

  vouch for it but there was a possibility. The look of hope with

  which Ivan Ilych watched the doctor out was so pathetic that

 
Praskovya Fedorovna, seeing it, even wept as she left the room to

  hand the doctor his fee.

  The gleam of hope kindled by the doctor's encouragement did

  not last long. The same room, the same pictures, curtains, wall-

  paper, medicine bottles, were all there, and the same aching

  suffering body, and Ivan Ilych began to moan. They gave him a

  subcutaneous injection and he sank into oblivion.

  It was twilight when he came to. They brought him his dinner

  and he swallowed some beef tea with difficulty, and then everything

  was the same again and night was coming on.

  After dinner, at seven o'clock, Praskovya Fedorovna came into

  the room in evening dress, her full bosom pushed up by her corset,

  and with traces of powder on her face. She had reminded him in the

  morning that they were going to the theatre. Sarah Bernhardt was

  visiting the town and they had a box, which he had insisted on

  their taking. Now he had forgotten about it and her toilet

  offended him, but he concealed his vexation when he remembered that

  he had himself insisted on their securing a box and going because

  it would be an instructive and aesthetic pleasure for the children.

  Praskovya Fedorovna came in, self-satisfied but yet with a

  rather guilty air. She sat down and asked how he was, but, as he

  saw, only for the sake of asking and not in order to learn about

  it, knowing that there was nothing to learn -- and then went on to

  what she really wanted to say: that she would not on any account

  have gone but that the box had been taken and Helen and their

  daughter were going, as well as Petrishchev (the examining

  magistrate, their daughter's fiance) and that it was out of the

  question to let them go alone; but that she would have much

  preferred to sit with him for a while; and he must be sure to

  follow the doctor's orders while she was away.

  "Oh, and Fedor Petrovich" (the fiance) "would like to come in.

  May he? And Lisa?"

  "All right."

  Their daughter came in in full evening dress, her fresh young

  flesh exposed (making a show of that very flesh which in his own

  case caused so much suffering), strong, healthy, evidently in love,

  and impatient with illness, suffering, and death, because they

  interfered with her happiness.

  Fedor petrovich came in too, in evening dress, his hair curled

  *a la Capoul*, a tight stiff collar round his long sinewy neck, an

  enormous white shirt-front and narrow black trousers tightly

  stretched over his strong thighs. He had one white glove tightly

  drawn on, and was holding his opera hat in his hand.

  Following him the schoolboy crept in unnoticed, in a new

  uniform, poor little fellow, and wearing gloves. Terribly dark

  shadows showed under his eyes, the meaning of which Ivan Ilych knew

  well.

  His son had always seemed pathetic to him, and now it was

  dreadful to see the boy's frightened look of pity. It seemed to

  Ivan Ilych that Vasya was the only one besides Gerasim who

  understood and pitied him.

  They all sat down and again asked how he was. A silence

  followed. Lisa asked her mother about the opera glasses, and there

  was an altercation between mother and daughter as to who had taken

  them and where they had been put. This occasioned some

  unpleasantness.

  Fedor Petrovich inquired of Ivan Ilych whether he had ever

  seen Sarah Bernhardt. Ivan Ilych did not at first catch the

  question, but then replied: "No, have you seen her before?"

  "Yes, in *Adrienne Lecouvreur*."

  Praskovya Fedorovna mentioned some roles in which Sarah

  Bernhardt was particularly good. Her daughter disagreed.

  Conversation sprang up as to the elegance and realism of her acting

  -- the sort of conversation that is always repeated and is always

  the same.

  In the midst of the conversation Fedor Petrovich glanced at

  Ivan Ilych and became silent. The others also looked at him and

  grew silent. Ivan Ilych was staring with glittering eyes straight

  before him, evidently indignant with them. This had to be

  rectified, but it was impossible to do so. The silence had to be

  broken, but for a time no one dared to break it and they all became

  afraid that the conventional deception would suddenly become