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

all revealed the same thing. “This is wrong, it is not as it should be. All

you have lived for and still live for is falsehood and deception, hiding

life and death from you.” And as soon as he admitted that thought, his

hatred and his agonizing physical suffering again sprang up, and with that

suffering a consciousness of the unavoidable, approaching end. And to this

was added a new sensation of grinding shooting pain and a feeling of

suffocation.

The expression of his face when he uttered that “Yes” was dreadful. Having

uttered it, he looked her straight in the eyes, turned on his face with a

rapidity extraordinary in his weak state and shouted:

“Go away! Go away and leave me alone!”

From that moment the screaming began that continued for three days, and was

so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without

horror. At the moment he answered his wife realized that he was lost, that

there was no return, that the end had come, the very end, and his doubts

were still unsolved and remained doubts.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he cried in various intonations. He had begun by screaming “I

won’t!” and continued screaming on the letter “O”.

For three whole days, during which time did not exist for him, he struggled

in that black sack into which he was being thrust by an invisible,

resistless force. He struggled as a man condemned to death struggles in the

hands of the executioner, knowing that he cannot save himself. And every

moment he felt that despite all his efforts he was drawing nearer and nearer

to what terrified him. He felt that his agony was due to his being thrust

into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into

it. He was hindered from getting into it by his conviction that his life had

been a good one. That very justification of his life held him fast and

prevented his moving forward, and it caused him most torment of all.

Suddenly some force struck him in the chest and side, making it still harder

to breathe, and he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a

light. What had happened to him was like the sensation one sometimes

experiences in a railway carriage when one thinks one is going backwards

while one is really going forwards and suddenly becomes aware of the real

direction.

“Yes, it was not the right thing,” he said to himself, “but that’s no

matter. It can be done. But what is the right thing? he asked himself, and

suddenly grew quiet.

This occurred at the end of the third day, two hours before his death. Just

then his schoolboy son had crept softly in and gone up to the bedside. The

dying man was still screaming desperately and waving his arms. His hand fell

on the boy’s head, and the boy caught it, pressed it to his lips, and began

to cry.

At that very moment Ivan Ilych fell through and caught sight of the light,

and it was revealed to him that though his life had not been what it should

have been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, “What is the

right thing?” and grew still, listening. Then he felt that someone was

kissing his hand. He opened his eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for

him. His wife came up to him and he glanced at her. She was gazing at him

open-mouthed, with undried tears on her nose and cheek and a despairing look

on her face. He felt sorry for her too.

“Yes, I am making them wretched,” he thought. “They are sorry, but it will

be better for them when I die.” He wished to say this but had not the

strength to utter it. “Besides, why speak? I must act,” he thought. With a

look at his wife he indicated his son and said: “Take him away… sorry

for him… sorry for you too….” He tried to add, “Forgive me,” but

said “Forego” and waved his hand, knowing that He whose understanding

mattered would understand.

And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and

would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten

sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to

hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. “How good

and how simple!” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “What has

become of it? Where are you, pain?”

He turned his attention to it.

“Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be.”

“And death… where is it?”

He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. “Where is

it? What death?” There was no fear because there was no death.

In place of death there was light.

“So that’s what it is!” he suddenly exclaimed aloud. “What joy!”

To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that

instant did not change. For those present his agony continued for another

two hours. Something rattled in his throat, his emaciated body twitched,

then the gasping and rattle became less and less frequent.

“It is finished!” said someone near him.

He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.

“Death is finished,” he said to himself. “It is no more!”

He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and

died.