The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (suggested reading .TXT) 📕

The Death of Ivan Ilych

by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

1886

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

During an interval in the Melvinski trial in the large building of the Law

Courts the members and public prosecutor met in Ivan Egorovich Shebek’s

private room, where the conversation turned on the celebrated Krasovski

case. Fedor Vasilievich warmly maintained that it was not subject to their

jurisdiction, Ivan Egorovich maintained the contrary, while Peter Ivanovich,

not having entered into the discussion at the start, took no part in it but

looked through the Gazette which had just been handed in.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “Ivan Ilych has died!”

“You don’t say so!”

“Here, read it yourself,” replied Peter Ivanovich, handing Fedor Vasilievich

the paper still damp from the press. Surrounded by a black border were the

words: “Praskovya Fedorovna Golovina, with profound sorrow, informs

relatives and friends of the demise of her beloved husband Ivan Ilych

Golovin, Member of the Court of Justice, which occurred on February the 4th

of this year 1882. The funeral will take place on Friday at one o’clock in

the afternoon.”

Ivan Ilych had been a colleague of the gentlemen present and was liked by

them all. He had been ill for some weeks with an illness said to be

incurable. His post had been kept open for him, but there had been

conjectures that in case of his death Alexeev might receive his appointment,

and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would succeed Alexeev. So on receiving

the news of Ivan Ilych’s death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in

that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among

themselves or their acquaintances.

“I shall be sure to get Shtabel’s place or Vinnikov’s,” thought Fedor

Vasilievich. “I was promised that long ago, and the promotion means an extra

eight hundred rubles a year for me besides the allowance.”

“Now I must apply for my brother-in-law’s transfer from Kaluga,” thought

Peter Ivanovich. “My wife will be very glad, and then she won’t be able to

say that I never do anything for her relations.”

“I thought he would never leave his bed again,” said Peter Ivanovich aloud.

“It’s very sad.”

“But what really was the matter with him?”

“The doctors couldn’t say — at least they could, but each of them said

something different. When last I saw him I though he was getting better.”

“And I haven’t been to see him since the holidays. I always meant to go.”

“Had he any property?”

“I think his wife had a little — but something quiet trifling.”

“We shall have to go to see her, but they live so terribly far away.”

“Far away from you, you mean. Everything’s far away from your place.”

“You see, he never can forgive my living on the other side of the river,”

said Peter Ivanovich, smiling at Shebek. Then, still talking of the

distances between different parts of the city, they returned to the Court.

Besides considerations as to the possible transfers and promotions likely to

result from Ivan Ilych’s death, the mere fact of the death of a near

acquaintance aroused, as usual, in all who heard of it the complacent

feeling that, “it is he who is dead and not I.”

Each one thought or felt, “Well, he’s dead but I’m alive!” But the more

intimate of Ivan Ilych’s acquaintances, his so-called friends, could not

help thinking also that they would now have to fulfill the very tiresome

demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of

condolence to the widow.

Fedor Vasilievich and Peter Ivanovich had been his nearest acquaintances.

Peter Ivanovich had studied law with Ivan Ilych and had considered himself

to be under obligations to him.

Having told his wife at dinner-time of Ivan Ilych’s death, and of his

conjecture that it might be possible to get her brother transferred to their

circuit, Peter Ivanovich sacrificed his usual nap, put on his evening

clothes and drove to Ivan Ilych’s house.

At the entrance stood a carriage and two cabs. Leaning against the wall in

the hall downstairs near the cloak-stand was a coffin-lid covered with cloth

of gold, ornamented with gold cord and tassels, that had been polished up

with metal powder. Two ladies in black were taking off their fur cloaks.

Peter Ivanovich recognized one of them as Ivan Ilych’s sister, but the other

was a stranger to him. His colleague Schwartz was just coming downstairs,

but on seeing Peter Ivanovich enter he stopped and winked at him, as if to

say: “Ivan Ilych has made a mess of things — not like you and me.”

Schwartz’s face with his Piccadilly whiskers, and his slim figure in evening

dress, had as usual an air of elegant solemnity which contrasted with the

playfulness of his character and had a special piquancy here, or so it

seemed to Peter Ivanovich.

Peter Ivanovich allowed the ladies to precede him and slowly followed them

upstairs. Schwartz did not come down but remained where he was, and Peter

Ivanovich understood that he wanted to arrange where they should play bridge

that evening. The ladies went upstairs to the widow’s room, and Schwartz

with seriously compressed lips but a playful looking his eyes, indicated by

a twist of his eyebrows the room to the right where the body lay.

Peter Ivanovich, like everyone else on such occasions, entered feeling

uncertain what he would have to do. All he knew was that at such times it is

always safe to cross oneself. But he was not quite sure whether one should

make obeisances while doing so. He therefore adopted a middle course. On

entering the room he began crossing himself and made a slight movement

resembling a bow. At the same time, as far as the motion of his head and arm

allowed, he surveyed the room. Two young men — apparently nephews, one of

whom was a high-school pupil — were leaving the room, crossing themselves as

they did so. An old woman was standing motionless, and a lady with strangely

arched eyebrows was saying something to her in a whisper. A vigorous,

resolute Church Reader, in a frock-coat, was reading something in a loud

voice with an expression that precluded any contradiction. The butler’s

assistant, Gerasim, stepping lightly in front of Peter Ivanovich, was

strewing something on the floor. Noticing this, Peter Ivanovich was

immediately aware of a faint odour of a decomposing body.

The last time he had called on Ivan Ilych, Peter Ivanovich had seen Gerasim

in the study. Ivan Ilych had been particularly fond of him and he was

performing the duty of a sick nurse.

Peter Ivanovich continued to make the sign of the cross slightly inclining

his head in an intermediate direction between the coffin, the Reader, and

the icons on the table in a corner of the room. Afterwards, when it seemed

to him that this movement of his arm in crossing himself had gone on too

long, he stopped and began to look at the corpse.

The dead man lay, as dead men always lie, in a specially heavy way, his

rigid limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the coffin, with the head forever

bowed on the pillow. His yellow waxen brow with bald patches over his sunken

temples was thrust up in the way peculiar to the dead, the protruding nose

seeming to press on the upper lip. He was much changed and grown even

thinner since Peter Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as is always the case

with the dead, his face was handsomer and above all more dignified than when

he was alive. The expression on the face said that what was necessary had

been accomplished, and accomplished rightly. Besides this there was in that

expression a reproach and a warning to the living. This warning seemed to

Peter Ivanovich out of place, or at least not applicable to him. He felt a

certain discomfort and so he hurriedly crossed himself once more and turned

and went out of the door — too hurriedly and too regardless of propriety, as

he himself was aware.

Schwartz was waiting for him in the adjoining room with legs spread wide

apart and both hands toying with his top-hat behind his back. The mere sight

of that playful, well-groomed, and elegant figure refreshed Peter Ivanovich.

He felt that Schwartz was above all these happenings and would not surrender

to any depressing influences. His very look said that this incident of a

church service for Ivan Ilych could not be a sufficient reason for

infringing the order of the session — in other words, that it would

certainly not prevent his unwrapping a new pack of cards and shuffling them

that evening while a footman placed fresh candles on the table: in fact,

that there was no reason for supposing that this incident would hinder their

spending the evening agreeably. Indeed he said this in a whisper as Peter

Ivanovich passed him, proposing that they should meet for a game at Fedor

Vasilievich’s. But apparently Peter Ivanovich was not destined to play

bridge that evening. Praskovya Fedorovna (a short, fat woman who despite all

efforts to the contrary had continued to broaden steadily from her shoulders

downwards and who had the same extraordinarily arched eyebrows as the lady

who had been standing by the coffin), dressed all in black, her head covered

with lace, came out of her own room with some other ladies, conducted them

to the room where the dead body lay, and said: “The service will begin

immediately. Please go in.”

Schwartz, making an indefinite bow, stood still, evidently neither accepting

nor declining this invitation. Praskovya Fedorovna recognizing Peter

Ivanovich, sighed, went close up to him, took his hand, and said: “I know

you were a true friend to Ivan Ilych… ” and looked at him awaiting some

suitable response. And Peter Ivanovich knew that, just as it had been the

right thing to cross himself in that room, so what he had to do here was to

press her hand, sigh, and say, “Believe me… ” So he did all this and as

he did it felt that the desired result had been achieved: that both he and

she were touched.

“Come with me. I want to speak to you before it begins,” said the widow.

“Give me your arm.”

Peter Ivanovich gave her his arm and they went to the inner rooms, passing

Schwartz who winked at Peter Ivanovich compassionately.

“That does for our bridge! Don’s object if we find another player. Perhaps

you can cut in when you do escape,” said his playful look.

Peter Ivanovich sighed still more deeply and despondently, and Praskovya

Fedorovna pressed his arm gratefully. When they reached the drawing-room,

upholstered in pink cretonne and lighted by a dim lamp, they sat down at the

table — she on a sofa and Peter Ivanovich on a low pouffe, the springs of

which yielded spasmodically under his weight. Praskovya Fedorovna had been

on the point of warning him to take another seat, but felt that such a

warning was out of keeping with her present condition and so changed her

mind. As he sat down on the pouffe Peter Ivanovich recalled how Ivan Ilych

had arranged