The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [books to read in a lifetime TXT] 📗
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The Death of Ivan Ilych
by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
1886
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
IDuring 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
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