THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH
By Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
1886
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Distributed by the Tolstoy Library
http://home.aol.com/Tolstoy28
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I
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 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 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 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 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 ...
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