THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH
By Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
1886
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Distributed by the Tolstoy Library
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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
fulfil 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 cloakstand 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 obseisances 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 f
ront 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 this room and had consulted
him regarding this pink cretonne with green leaves. The whole room
was full of furniture and knick-knacks, and on her way to the sofa
the lace of the widow's black shawl caught on the edge of the
table. Peter Ivanovich rose to detach it, and the springs of the
pouffe, relieved of his weight, rose also and gave him a push. The
widow began detaching her shawl herself, and Peter Ivanovich again
sat down, suppressing the rebellious springs of the pouffe under
him. But the widow had not quite freed herself and Peter Ivanovich
got up again, and again the pouffe rebelled and even creaked. When
this was all over she took out a clean cambric handkerchief and
began to weep. The episode with the shawl and the struggle with
the pouffe had cooled Peter Ivanovich's emotions and he sat there
with a sullen look on his face. This awkward situation was
interrupted by Sokolov, Ivan Ilych's butler, who came to report
that the plot in the cemetery that Praskovya Fedorovna had chosen
would cost tow hundred rubles. She stopped weeping and, looking at
Peter Ivanovich with the air of a victim, remarked in French that
it was very hard for her. Peter Ivanovich made a silent gesture
signifying his full conviction that it must indeed be so.
"Please smoke," she said in a magnanimous yet crushed voice,
and turned to discuss with Sokolov the price of the plot for the
grave.
Peter Ivanovich while lighting his cigarette heard her
inquiring very circumstantially into the prices of different plots
in the cemetery and finally decide which she would take. when that
was done she gave instructions about engaging the choir. Sokolov
then left the room.
"I look after everything myself," she told Peter Ivanovich,
shifting the albums that lay on the table; and noticing that the
table was endangered by his cigarette-ash, she immediately passed
him an ash-tray, saying as she did so: "I consider it an
affectation to say that my grief prevents my attending to practical
affairs. On the contrary, if anything can -- I won't say console
me, but -- distract me, it is s
eeing to everything concerning him."
She again took out her handkerchief as if preparing to cry, but
suddenly, as if mastering her feeling, she shook herself and began
to speak calmly. "But there is something I want to talk to you
about."
Peter Ivanovich bowed, keeping control of the springs of the
pouffe, which immediately began quivering under him.
"He suffered terribly the last few days."
"Did he?" said Peter Ivanovich.
"Oh, terribly! He screamed unceasingly, not for minutes but
for hours. for the last three days he screamed incessantly. It
was unendurable. I cannot understand how I bore it; you could hear
him three rooms off. Oh, what I have suffered!"
"Is it possible that he was conscious all that time?" asked
Peter Ivanovich.
"Yes," she whispered. "To the last moment. He took leave of
us a quarter of an hour before he died, and asked us to take
Volodya away."
The thought of the suffering of this man he had known so
intimately, first as a merry little boy, then as a schoolmate, and
later as a grown-up colleague, suddenly struck Peter Ivanovich with
horror, despite an unpleasant consciousness of his own and this
woman's dissimulation. He again saw that brow, and that nose
pressing down on the lip, and felt afraid for himself.
"Three days of frightful suffering and the death! Why, that
might suddenly, at any time, happen to me," he thought, and for a
moment felt terrified. But -- he did not himself know how -- the
customary reflection at once occurred to him that this had happened
to Ivan Ilych and not to him, and that it should not and could not
happen to him, and that to think that it could would be yielding to
depressing which he ought not to do, as Schwartz's expression
plainly showed. After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt
reassured, and began to ask with interest about the details of Ivan
Ilych's death, as though death was an accident natural to Ivan
Ilych but certainly not to himself.
After many details of the really dreadful physical sufferings
Ivan Ilych had endured (which details he learnt only from the
effect those sufferings had produced on Praskovya Fedorovna's
nerves) the widow apparently found it necessary to get to business.
"Oh, Peter Ivanovich, how hard it is! How terribly, terribly
hard!" and she again began to weep.
Peter Ivanovich sighed and waited for her to finish blowing
her nose. When she had don so he said, "Believe me..." and she
again began talking and brought out what was evidently her chief
concern with him -- namely, to question him as to how she could
obtain a grant of money from the government on the occasion of her
husband's death. She made it appear that she was asking Peter
Ivanovich's advice about her pension, but he soon saw that she
already knew about that to the minutest detail, more even than he
did himself. She knew how much could be got out of the government
in consequence of her husband's death, but wanted to find out
whether she could not possibly extract something more. Peter
Ivanovich tried to think of some means of doing so, but after
reflecting for a while and, out of propriety, condemning the
government for its niggardliness, he said he thought that nothing
more could be got. Then she sighed and evidently began to devise
means of getting rid of her visitor. Noticing this, he put out his
cigarette, rose, pressed her hand, and went out into the anteroom.
In the dining-room where the clock stood that Ivan Ilych had
liked so much and had bought at an antique shop, Peter Ivanovich
met a priest and a few acquaintances who had come to attend the
service, and he recognized Ivan Ilych's daughter, a handsome young
woman. She was in black and her slim figure appeared slimmer than
ever. She had a gloomy, determined, almost angry expression, and
bowed to Peter Ivanovich as though he were in some way to blame.
Behind her, with the same offended look, stood a wealthy young man,
and examining magistrate, whom Peter Ivanovich also knew and who
was her fiance, as he had heard. He bowed mournfully to them and
was about to pass into the death-chamber, when from under the
stairs appeared the figure of Ivan Ilych's schoolboy son, who was