The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man (9 page)

“I’ll be no more, and then what will there be? Nothing. Then where will I be, when I will be no longer? Is this really death? Go away, I don’t want you.” He sat upright, wanting to light his candle, fumbled with trembling hands, dropped candle and candlestick on the floor, and fell back on his pillow. “What for? It doesn’t make any difference,” he said to himself, staring with open eyes into the dark. “Death. Yes, death. And none of them know, and none of them want to know, and none of them are sorry. They’re having fun.” (From beyond his door he heard the distant sound of voices and a musical ritornello.) “They don’t care, but they’ll die just like me. Idiocy. Sooner for me, later for them, but it will come. And they’re happy. Mindless brutes!” He was choked with resentment. And he grew agonizingly, unbearably sick at heart. It cannot be that everyone, always, is doomed to this awful horror. He sat up.

“Something’s wrong. I must calm down and think everything through from the beginning.” And he started thinking it out. “Yes, there was the beginning of the illness. I knocked my side, but was the same before and after; it ached a bit, and then a bit more, and then there were doctors, and then depression, dreariness, doctors again, and I kept coming closer and closer to the abyss. Less strength. Closer and closer. And here I am, wasted away, no light in my eyes. This is death, and I’m thinking about my gut. I’m thinking about putting my kidney right, and this is death. Can this really be death?” Panic overcame him again, he lost his breath, bent over to look for matches, and knocked his elbow on the bedside table. The table got in his way and hurt him; he lost his temper, pushed it harder in his vexation, and knocked it over. And, in despair, barely able to breathe, he fell back expecting instant death.

At this time the guests were taking their leave. Praskovya Feodorovna was seeing them out. She heard something fall and came in.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I dropped it, by accident.”

She went out and came back with a candle. He lay there, breathing fast and hard, like a man who has run a mile, looking at her with a fixed stare.

“What is it, Jean?”

“N—nothing. I . . . dro—dropped it. . . .” (Why bother to say? She won’t understand, he thought.)

Certainly she did not understand. She picked up his candle, lit it, and left hastily; there was a last guest to see to.

When she returned, he was still lying on his back, staring above him.

“What is it; are you worse?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and sat by him awhile.

“You know, Jean, I’m wondering whether we should get Leschititsky to visit you here.”

That meant calling out the famous doctor without a thought for the expense. He smiled poisonously and said, “No.” She sat a little longer, went up to him, and kissed him on the forehead.

At that moment, as she kissed him, he hated her with all the strength of his soul and had to make an effort not to push her away.

“Good night. God willing, you’ll fall asleep.”

“Yes.”

6

Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and was in continual despair.

In the depths of his soul Ivan Ilyich knew that he was dying, but he could not get used to the idea, and, more than that, he simply did not and could not take it in.

All his life the example of a syllogism he had learned in Kiesewetter’s logic
²⁷
—Caius is a man; men are mortal; therefore Caius is mortal—seemed to him to be correct only in relation to Caius and in no way to himself. There was Caius the man, man in general, and that was quite fair—but he was not Caius and not man in general. He was always quite, quite different from all other beings. He was little Vanya with Mamma, with Papa, with Mitya and Volodya and his toys and the coachman and his nanny and then with Katenka
²⁸
, with all the joys and sorrows and passions of childhood, youth, and adolescence. Did Caius know the smell of the striped leather ball Vanya loved so much? Did Caius kiss his mother’s hand like him, and did the silk pleats of his mother’s dress rustle like that for Caius? Did Caius clamor for pasties at school? Did Caius ever fall in love like him? Could Caius chair a session like him?

Naturally Caius was mortal, and it was right for him to die, but for me, Vanya, Ivan Ilyich, with all my feelings and thoughts—for me it is another matter. And it cannot be right for me to die. That would be too terrible.

That was what he felt.

“If I also had to die, like Caius, then I would have known it, my inner voice would have told me so. But there was nothing of the sort inside me. Both I and all my friends—we understood that for us it was nothing like it was for Caius. And now look!” he said to himself. “It can’t be. It can’t be, but it is. How can it be? How can I understand it?”

He could not comprehend it, and tried to drive the thought away as something mendacious, mistaken, morbid, crowding it out with different, acceptable, and healthy thoughts. But the thought was not only a thought, it was like a reality that returned to stand before him.

And he called up other thoughts in turn to take the place of this thought, hoping to find support from them. He tried to return to his old habits of mind, which had screened him in the past from the thought of death. But, strange to say, everything that had screened him in the past, obscuring and abolishing the awareness of death, could not do so any longer. In these days Ivan Ilyich spent most of his time trying to reestablish the old train of thoughts that had once screened him from death. Sometimes he said to himself, “I’ll get back to work; after all, that was my life.” And he went to court, shaking off any doubts; he chatted with his friends and took his place as he always had done, a trifle absentmindedly, casting a thoughtful glance over the crowd and, bracing himself with both emaciated hands on the arms of his chair, inclined his head as usual to his colleague, moving matters along in a whisper—and then, abruptly raising his eyes and seating himself straight, pronounced the familiar words that opened the proceedings. But suddenly the pain in his side, not paying the least attention to the stage reached in the hearing, started
its
business, sucking away at him. Ivan Ilyich listened to the proceedings, beating off the thought of it but it held its own.
It
came up and stood right in front of him, and looked at him, and he froze, the light died out of his eyes, and once more he started asking himself, “Surely
it
can’t be the only truth?” And his colleagues and subordinates watched with regret and surprise as he, such an acute and dazzling judge, got confused and made mistakes. He would shake himself, trying to collect his thoughts and carry the proceedings to a conclusion somehow or other. He drove home in the sad knowledge that his court duties could no longer conceal from him the thing he wanted to conceal—his court duties could not free him from
it.
And what was worst of all was that
it
drew his attention to itself, not for him to do something different, but only for him to look
it
straight in the eyes, look at
it
and, having nothing else to do, suffer unspeakably.

To save himself from this situation, Ivan Ilyich searched for other consolations, other screens—and other screens were found and for a short time seemed to save him. But soon enough they did not quite fall to pieces so much as wear thin, as though
it
penetrated everything, and nothing could shield him from
its
glare.

In these days he went into the drawing room that he had furnished—the drawing room where he fell, and for whose décor (so the venomous absurdity of it struck him) he had sacrificed his life. He knew his illness began with that bruise. Coming into the drawing room he noticed that the lacquered table had been scratched by something and, searching for a cause, found it in the album with the brass openwork cover that was twisted at one corner. He picked up the album, a costly one he had lovingly arranged himself, vexed by the thoughtlessness of his daughter and her friends—one picture torn, others in disarray—and painstakingly put it in order, bending back the brass corner.

Then it occurred to him to move the whole
établissemen
t
²⁹
with the photograph albums into a different corner where the flowers stood. He called the footman; either his wife or daughter came to help, they disagreed and contradicted each other; he argued and grew cross; but everything was all right, because he was not remembering
it—it
could not be seen.

But then, as he was moving everything himself, his wife happened to say, “Leave it, the servants can do that; you’ll only do yourself another injury,” and suddenly
it
flickered through the screen, he caught sight of
it.
It was only a glimpse; he still hoped
it
would withdraw from view, but involuntarily he attended to his side—and there it is, the same thing still crouching there, gnawing away. He can no longer forget anything, and
it
is distinctly staring at him from behind the flowers. What is the point of it all?

“And it’s true that I lost my life climbing up to this curtain, like a man on the barricades. Can that really be true? How terrible and how stupid! It can’t be! It can’t be, and it is.”

He went back to his study to lie down. He was alone with
it
again. Face-to-face with
it,
and nothing to do. Just look at
it
and grow cold.

7

How it came about would be impossible to say, because it happened imperceptibly, inch by inch, but in the third month of Ivan Ilyich’s illness it came to pass that both his wife, his daughter, his son, the servants, and friends, and doctors, and, above all he himself all knew that their only interest in him lay in how quickly he would vacate his post at last, free the living from the constraints imposed by his presence, and himself be freed from suffering.

He slept less and less; he was given opium and injections of morphine. But it made things no easier for him. The dull misery he felt in his semisoporific state at first relieved him only by being something new; but afterward it became as harrowing as frank pain, or even worse.

They prepared special food for him in accordance with the doctors’ instructions, but the dishes grew more and more tasteless and disgusting to him.

Special arrangements were also made for his excretions, and he found them unbearable every time. He was tormented by the dirt, the indecency, the smell, and the knowledge that another person had to take part.

But in this most unpleasant business Ivan Ilyich’s consolation came to light. It was Gerasim, the peasant who served at table, who always came to carry out the soil.

Gerasim was a clean, fresh young peasant who had thrived on city food. He was always bright and cheerful. At first the sight of this lad, always cleanly dressed in the Russian style, doing this disgusting work, discomfited Ivan Ilyich. Once he got up from the commode and was unable to pull up his trousers. He fell into a padded armchair and looked in horror at his powerless naked thighs with their starkly marked muscles.

Gerasim entered with his light, strong step in his thick boots, bringing with him a pleasant smell of tar from his boots and fresh winter air. Wearing a clean homespun apron and clean cotton-print rubakha,
³⁰
his sleeves rolled up his strong, bare young arms, and not looking at Ivan Ilyich—evidently withholding his pleasure in life that shone in his face, so as not to offend the sick man—he went up to the commode.

“Gerasim,” said Ivan Ilyich weakly.

Gerasim started, evidently alarmed that he might have done something wrong, and with a quick movement turned to the invalid his fresh, kind, simple young face that was just beginning to show signs of a beard.

“Can I do anything for you?”

“I think that must be unpleasant for you. You must forgive me. I can’t help it.”

“Not at all, sir.” And Gerasim beamed with white young teeth and bright eyes. “Why shouldn’t I take a little trouble? You’re not so well.”

And with deft, strong hands he did his usual task and went out on light feet. And five minutes later returned stepping as lightly as before.

Ivan Ilyich had not moved from the armchair.

“Gerasim,” he said, when the lad had replaced the clean pan. “Could you help me please? Just come over here.” Gerasim came up. “Lift me up. It’s hard for me on my own, but I told Dmitri he could go.”

Gerasim came right up to him; put his strong arms around him; and with the lightness of his step, deftly, gently lifted him up and steadied him, pulling up his trousers with the other hand. He was about to sit him down again, but Ivan Ilyich asked him to take him to the divan. Effortlessly and without apparent pressure, Gerasim led him, almost carrying him, to the divan and settled him down.

“Thank you. How lightly, how well . . . you do everything.”

Gerasim smiled again and wanted to leave. But it felt so good to be with him that Ivan Ilyich did not want to let him go.

“I tell you what; move up that chair for me, please. No, that one, under my legs. It’s easier for me when my feet are raised.”

Gerasim carried the chair across, set it down steadily without knocking it, and lifted Ivan Ilyich’s legs onto the chair. It seemed to Ivan Ilyich that he felt better while Gerasim was lifting his legs up.

“I feel better when my legs are high,” said Ivan Ilyich. “Put that cushion over there under them.”

Gerasim did so. Once more he lifted up his legs and put them down again. Once more Ivan Ilyich felt eased while Gerasim was holding up his legs. When he laid them down he seemed to feel worse again.

“Gerasim,” he said to him, “are you busy at the moment?”

“Not in the least, your honor,” said Gerasim, who had learned from the city folk how to speak to the gentry.

“What have you still got to do?”

“What, me? I’ve nothing to do, I’ve done it all—there’s only the wood to chop for tomorrow.”