Chapter
V
So one month
passed and then another. Just before the New Year his brother-in-law came to
town and stayed at their house. Ivan Ilych was at the law courts and Praskovya
Fedorovna had gone shopping. When Ivan Ilych came home and entered his study he
found his brother-in-law there — a healthy, florid man — unpacking his
portmanteau himself. He raised his head on hearing Ivan Ilych's footsteps and
looked up at him for a moment without a word. That stare told Ivan Ilych
everything. His brother-in-law opened his mouth to utter an exclamation of
surprise but checked himself, and that action confirmed it all. "I have
changed, eh?" "Yes, there is a change." And after that, try as he
would to get his brother-in-law to return to the subject of his looks, the
latter would say nothing about it. Praskovya Fedorovna came home and her
brother went out to her. Ivan Ilych locked to door and began to examine himself
in the glass, first full face, then in profile. He took up a portrait of
himself taken with his wife, and compared it with what he saw in the glass. The
change in him was immense. Then he bared his arms to the elbow, looked at them,
drew the sleeves down again, sat down on an ottoman, and grew blacker than
night.
"No, no, this won't do!" he said to himself, and jumped up, went to the
table, took up some law papers and began to read them, but could not continue.
He unlocked the door and went into the reception-room. The door leading to the
drawing-room was shut. He approached it on tiptoe and listened.
"No, you are exaggerating!" Praskovya Fedorovna was saying.
"Exaggerating! Don't you see it? Why, he's a dead man! Look at his eyes —
there's no life in them. But what is it that is wrong with him?"
"No one knows. Nikolaevich [that was another doctor] said something, but I
don't know what. And Seshchetitsky [this was the celebrated specialist] said
quite the contrary..."
Ivan Ilych walked away, went to his own room, lay down, and began musing;
"The kidney, a floating kidney." He recalled all the doctors had told him of
how it detached itself and swayed about. And by an effort of imagination he
tried to catch that kidney and arrest it and support it. So little was needed
for this, it seemed to him. "No, I'll go to see Peter Ivanovich again." [That
was the friend whose friend was a doctor.] He rang, ordered the carriage, and
got ready to go.
"Where are you going, Jean?" asked his wife with a specially sad and
exceptionally kind look.
This exceptionally kind look irritated him. He looked morosely at her.
"I must go to see Peter Ivanovich."
He went to see Peter Ivanovich, and together they went to see his friend, the
doctor. He was in, and Ivan Ilych had a long talk with him.
Reviewing the anatomical and physiological details of what in the doctor's
opinion was going on inside him, he understood it all.
There was something, a small thing, in the vermiform appendix. It might all
come right. Only stimulate the energy of one organ and check the activity of
another, then absorption would take place and everything would come right. He
got home rather late for dinner, ate his dinner, and conversed cheerfully, but
could not for a long time bring himself to go back to work in his room. At
last, however, he went to his study and did what was necessary, but the
consciousness that he had put something aside — an important, intimate matter
which he would revert to when his work was done — never left him. When he had
finished his work he remembered that this intimate matter was the thought of his
vermiform appendix. But he did not give himself up to it, and went to the
drawing-room for tea. There were callers there, including the examining
magistrate who was a desirable match for his daughter, and they were conversing,
playing the piano, and singing. Ivan Ilych, as Praskovya Fedorovna remarked,
spent that evening more cheerfully than usual, but he never for a moment forgot
that he had postponed the important matter of the appendix. At eleven o'clock
he said goodnight and went to his bedroom. Since his illness he had slept alone
in a small room next to his study. He undressed and took up a novel by Zola,
but instead of reading it he fell into thought, and in his imagination that
desired improvement in the vermiform appendix occurred. There was the
absorption and evacuation and the re-establishment of normal activity. "Yes,
that's it!" he said to himself. "One need only assist nature, that's all." He
remembered his medicine, rose, took it, and lay down on his back watching for
the beneficent action of the medicine and for it to lessen the pain. "I need
only take it regularly and avoid all injurious influences. I am already feeling
better, much better." He began touching his side: it was not painful to the
touch. "There, I really don't feel it. It's much better already." He put out
the light and turned on his side ... "The appendix is getting better, absorption
is occurring." Suddenly he felt the old, familiar, dull, gnawing pain, stubborn
and serious. There was the same familiar loathsome taste in his mouth. His
heart sand and he felt dazed. "My God! My God!" he muttered. "Again, again!
And it will never cease." And suddenly the matter presented itself in a quite
different aspect. "Vermiform appendix! Kidney!" he said to himself. "It's not
a question of appendix or kidney, but of life and...death. Yes, life was there
and now it is going, going and I cannot stop it. Yes. Why deceive myself?
Isn't it obvious to everyone but me that I'm dying, and that it's only a
question of weeks, days...it may happen this moment. There was light and now
there is darkness. I was here and now I'm going there! Where?" A chill came
over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbing of his heart.
"When I am not, what will there be? There will be nothing. Then where shall
I be when I am no more? Can this be dying? No, I don't want to!" He jumped up
and tried to light the candle, felt for it with trembling hands, dropped candle
and candlestick on the floor, and fell back on his pillow.
"What's the use? It makes no difference," he said to himself, staring with
wide-open eyes into the darkness. "Death. Yes, death. And none of them knows
or wishes to know it, and they have no pity for me. Now they are playing." (He
heard through the door the distant sound of a song and its accompaniment.)
"It's all the same to them, but they will die too! Fools! I first, and they
later, but it will be the same for them. And now they are merry...the
beasts!"
Anger choked him and he was agonizingly, unbearably miserable. "It is
impossible that all men have been doomed to suffer this awful horror!" He
raised himself.
"Something must be wrong. I must calm myself — must think it all over from
the beginning." And he again began thinking. "Yes, the beginning of my
illness: I knocked my side, but I was still quite well that day and the next.
It hurt a little, then rather more. I saw the doctors, then followed
despondency and anguish, more doctors, and I drew nearer to the abyss. My
strength grew less and I kept coming nearer and nearer, and now I have wasted
away and there is no light in my eyes. I think of the appendix — but this is
death! I think of mending the appendix, and all the while here is death! Can
it really be death?" Again terror seized him and he gasped for breath. He
leant down and began feeling for the matches, pressing with his elbow on the
stand beside the bed. It was in his way and hurt him, he grew furious with it,
pressed on it still harder, and upset it. Breathless and in despair he fell on
his back, expecting death to come immediately.
Meanwhile the visitors were leaving. Praskovya Fedorovna was seeing them
off. She heard something fall and came in.
"What has happened?"
"Nothing. I knocked it over accidentally."
She went out and returned with a candle. He lay there panting heavily, like
a man who has run a thousand yards, and stared upwards at her with a fixed look.
"What is it, Jean?"
"No...o...thing. I upset it." ("Why speak of it? She won't understand," he
thought.)
And in truth she did not understand. She picked up the stand, lit his
candle, and hurried away to see another visitor off. When she came back he
still lay on his back, looking upwards.
"What is it? Do you feel worse?"
"Yes."
She shook her head and sat down.
"Do you know, Jean, I think we must ask Leshchetitsky to come and see you
here."
This meant calling in the famous specialist, regardless of expense. He
smiled malignantly and said "No." She remained a little longer and then went up
to him and kissed his forehead.
While she was kissing him he hated her from the bottom of his soul and with
difficulty refrained from pushing her away.
"Good night. Please God you'll sleep."
"Yes."
V
So one month
passed and then another. Just before the New Year his brother-in-law came to
town and stayed at their house. Ivan Ilych was at the law courts and Praskovya
Fedorovna had gone shopping. When Ivan Ilych came home and entered his study he
found his brother-in-law there — a healthy, florid man — unpacking his
portmanteau himself. He raised his head on hearing Ivan Ilych's footsteps and
looked up at him for a moment without a word. That stare told Ivan Ilych
everything. His brother-in-law opened his mouth to utter an exclamation of
surprise but checked himself, and that action confirmed it all. "I have
changed, eh?" "Yes, there is a change." And after that, try as he
would to get his brother-in-law to return to the subject of his looks, the
latter would say nothing about it. Praskovya Fedorovna came home and her
brother went out to her. Ivan Ilych locked to door and began to examine himself
in the glass, first full face, then in profile. He took up a portrait of
himself taken with his wife, and compared it with what he saw in the glass. The
change in him was immense. Then he bared his arms to the elbow, looked at them,
drew the sleeves down again, sat down on an ottoman, and grew blacker than
night.
"No, no, this won't do!" he said to himself, and jumped up, went to the
table, took up some law papers and began to read them, but could not continue.
He unlocked the door and went into the reception-room. The door leading to the
drawing-room was shut. He approached it on tiptoe and listened.
"No, you are exaggerating!" Praskovya Fedorovna was saying.
"Exaggerating! Don't you see it? Why, he's a dead man! Look at his eyes —
there's no life in them. But what is it that is wrong with him?"
"No one knows. Nikolaevich [that was another doctor] said something, but I
don't know what. And Seshchetitsky [this was the celebrated specialist] said
quite the contrary..."
Ivan Ilych walked away, went to his own room, lay down, and began musing;
"The kidney, a floating kidney." He recalled all the doctors had told him of
how it detached itself and swayed about. And by an effort of imagination he
tried to catch that kidney and arrest it and support it. So little was needed
for this, it seemed to him. "No, I'll go to see Peter Ivanovich again." [That
was the friend whose friend was a doctor.] He rang, ordered the carriage, and
got ready to go.
"Where are you going, Jean?" asked his wife with a specially sad and
exceptionally kind look.
This exceptionally kind look irritated him. He looked morosely at her.
"I must go to see Peter Ivanovich."
He went to see Peter Ivanovich, and together they went to see his friend, the
doctor. He was in, and Ivan Ilych had a long talk with him.
Reviewing the anatomical and physiological details of what in the doctor's
opinion was going on inside him, he understood it all.
There was something, a small thing, in the vermiform appendix. It might all
come right. Only stimulate the energy of one organ and check the activity of
another, then absorption would take place and everything would come right. He
got home rather late for dinner, ate his dinner, and conversed cheerfully, but
could not for a long time bring himself to go back to work in his room. At
last, however, he went to his study and did what was necessary, but the
consciousness that he had put something aside — an important, intimate matter
which he would revert to when his work was done — never left him. When he had
finished his work he remembered that this intimate matter was the thought of his
vermiform appendix. But he did not give himself up to it, and went to the
drawing-room for tea. There were callers there, including the examining
magistrate who was a desirable match for his daughter, and they were conversing,
playing the piano, and singing. Ivan Ilych, as Praskovya Fedorovna remarked,
spent that evening more cheerfully than usual, but he never for a moment forgot
that he had postponed the important matter of the appendix. At eleven o'clock
he said goodnight and went to his bedroom. Since his illness he had slept alone
in a small room next to his study. He undressed and took up a novel by Zola,
but instead of reading it he fell into thought, and in his imagination that
desired improvement in the vermiform appendix occurred. There was the
absorption and evacuation and the re-establishment of normal activity. "Yes,
that's it!" he said to himself. "One need only assist nature, that's all." He
remembered his medicine, rose, took it, and lay down on his back watching for
the beneficent action of the medicine and for it to lessen the pain. "I need
only take it regularly and avoid all injurious influences. I am already feeling
better, much better." He began touching his side: it was not painful to the
touch. "There, I really don't feel it. It's much better already." He put out
the light and turned on his side ... "The appendix is getting better, absorption
is occurring." Suddenly he felt the old, familiar, dull, gnawing pain, stubborn
and serious. There was the same familiar loathsome taste in his mouth. His
heart sand and he felt dazed. "My God! My God!" he muttered. "Again, again!
And it will never cease." And suddenly the matter presented itself in a quite
different aspect. "Vermiform appendix! Kidney!" he said to himself. "It's not
a question of appendix or kidney, but of life and...death. Yes, life was there
and now it is going, going and I cannot stop it. Yes. Why deceive myself?
Isn't it obvious to everyone but me that I'm dying, and that it's only a
question of weeks, days...it may happen this moment. There was light and now
there is darkness. I was here and now I'm going there! Where?" A chill came
over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbing of his heart.
"When I am not, what will there be? There will be nothing. Then where shall
I be when I am no more? Can this be dying? No, I don't want to!" He jumped up
and tried to light the candle, felt for it with trembling hands, dropped candle
and candlestick on the floor, and fell back on his pillow.
"What's the use? It makes no difference," he said to himself, staring with
wide-open eyes into the darkness. "Death. Yes, death. And none of them knows
or wishes to know it, and they have no pity for me. Now they are playing." (He
heard through the door the distant sound of a song and its accompaniment.)
"It's all the same to them, but they will die too! Fools! I first, and they
later, but it will be the same for them. And now they are merry...the
beasts!"
Anger choked him and he was agonizingly, unbearably miserable. "It is
impossible that all men have been doomed to suffer this awful horror!" He
raised himself.
"Something must be wrong. I must calm myself — must think it all over from
the beginning." And he again began thinking. "Yes, the beginning of my
illness: I knocked my side, but I was still quite well that day and the next.
It hurt a little, then rather more. I saw the doctors, then followed
despondency and anguish, more doctors, and I drew nearer to the abyss. My
strength grew less and I kept coming nearer and nearer, and now I have wasted
away and there is no light in my eyes. I think of the appendix — but this is
death! I think of mending the appendix, and all the while here is death! Can
it really be death?" Again terror seized him and he gasped for breath. He
leant down and began feeling for the matches, pressing with his elbow on the
stand beside the bed. It was in his way and hurt him, he grew furious with it,
pressed on it still harder, and upset it. Breathless and in despair he fell on
his back, expecting death to come immediately.
Meanwhile the visitors were leaving. Praskovya Fedorovna was seeing them
off. She heard something fall and came in.
"What has happened?"
"Nothing. I knocked it over accidentally."
She went out and returned with a candle. He lay there panting heavily, like
a man who has run a thousand yards, and stared upwards at her with a fixed look.
"What is it, Jean?"
"No...o...thing. I upset it." ("Why speak of it? She won't understand," he
thought.)
And in truth she did not understand. She picked up the stand, lit his
candle, and hurried away to see another visitor off. When she came back he
still lay on his back, looking upwards.
"What is it? Do you feel worse?"
"Yes."
She shook her head and sat down.
"Do you know, Jean, I think we must ask Leshchetitsky to come and see you
here."
This meant calling in the famous specialist, regardless of expense. He
smiled malignantly and said "No." She remained a little longer and then went up
to him and kissed his forehead.
While she was kissing him he hated her from the bottom of his soul and with
difficulty refrained from pushing her away.
"Good night. Please God you'll sleep."
"Yes."
Chapter
VI
Ivan Ilych saw
that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not
accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.
The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men
are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as
applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in
the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an
abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had been
little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a
coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and will all the joys, griefs, and
delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of
that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his
mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had
he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love
like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? "Caius really was
mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych,
with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It
cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."
Such was his feeling.
"If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An inner voice
would have told me so, but there was nothing of the sort in me and I and all my
friends felt that our case was quite different from that of Caius. and now here
it is!" he said to himself. "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is.
How is this? How is one to understand it?"
He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false, incorrect, morbid
thought away and to replace it by other proper and healthy thoughts. But that
thought, and not the thought only but the reality itself, seemed to come and
confront him.
And to replace that thought he called up a succession of others, hoping to
find in them some support. He tried to get back into the former current of
thoughts that had once screened the thought of death from him. But strange to
say, all that had formerly shut off, hidden, and destroyed his consciousness of
death, no longer had that effect. Ivan Ilych now spent most of his time in
attempting to re-establish that old current. He would say to himself: "I will
take up my duties again — after all I used to live by them." And banishing all
doubts he would go to the law courts, enter into conversation with his
colleagues, and sit carelessly as was his wont, scanning the crowd with a
thoughtful look and leaning both his emaciated arms on the arms of his oak
chair; bending over as usual to a colleague and drawing his papers nearer he
would interchange whispers with him, and then suddenly raising his eyes and
sitting erect would pronounce certain words and open the proceedings. But
suddenly in the midst of those proceedings the pain in his side, regardless of
the stage the proceedings had reached, would begin its own gnawing work. Ivan
Ilych would turn his attention to it and try to drive the thought of it away,
but without success. *It* would come and stand before him and look at him, and
he would be petrified and the light would die out of his eyes, and he would
again begin asking himself whether *It* alone was true. And his colleagues and
subordinates would see with surprise and distress that he, the brilliant and
subtle judge, was becoming confused and making mistakes. He would shake
himself, try to pull himself together, manage somehow to bring the sitting to a
close, and return home with the sorrowful consciousness that his judicial
labours could not as formerly hide from him what he wanted them to hide, and
could not deliver him from *It*. And what was worst of all was that *It* drew
his attention to itself not in order to make him take some action but only that
he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and without
doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.
And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolations —
new screens — and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but
then they immediately fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It*
penetrated them and nothing could veil *It*.
In these latter days he would go into the drawing-room he had arranged — that
drawing-room where he had fallen and for the sake of which (how bitterly
ridiculous it seemed) he had sacrificed his life — for he knew that his illness
originated with that knock. He would enter and see that something had scratched
the polished table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was
the bronze ornamentation of an album, that had got bent. He would take up the
expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and feel vexed with his daughter
and her friends for their untidiness - - for the album was torn here and there
and some of the photographs turned upside down. He would put it carefully in
order and bend the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him
to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the plants. He
would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would come to help him. They
would not agree, and his wife would contradict him, and he would dispute and
grow angry. But that was all right, for then he did not think about *It*. *It*
was invisible.
But then, when he was moving something himself, his wife would say: "Let the
servants do it. You will hurt yourself again." And suddenly *It* would flash
through the screen and he would see it. It was just a flash, and he hoped it
would disappear, but he would involuntarily pay attention to his side. "It sits
there as before, gnawing just the same!" And he could no longer forget *It*,
but could distinctly see it looking at him from behind the flowers. "What is it
all for?"
"It really is so! I lost my life over that curtain as I might have done when
storming a fort. Is that possible? How terrible and how stupid. It can't be
true! It can't, but it is."
He would go to his study, lie down, and again be alone with *It*: face to
face with *It*. And nothing could be done with *It* except to look at it and
shudder.
VI
Ivan Ilych saw
that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not
accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.
The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men
are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as
applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in
the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an
abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had been
little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a
coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and will all the joys, griefs, and
delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of
that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his
mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had
he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love
like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? "Caius really was
mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych,
with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It
cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."
Such was his feeling.
"If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An inner voice
would have told me so, but there was nothing of the sort in me and I and all my
friends felt that our case was quite different from that of Caius. and now here
it is!" he said to himself. "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is.
How is this? How is one to understand it?"
He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false, incorrect, morbid
thought away and to replace it by other proper and healthy thoughts. But that
thought, and not the thought only but the reality itself, seemed to come and
confront him.
And to replace that thought he called up a succession of others, hoping to
find in them some support. He tried to get back into the former current of
thoughts that had once screened the thought of death from him. But strange to
say, all that had formerly shut off, hidden, and destroyed his consciousness of
death, no longer had that effect. Ivan Ilych now spent most of his time in
attempting to re-establish that old current. He would say to himself: "I will
take up my duties again — after all I used to live by them." And banishing all
doubts he would go to the law courts, enter into conversation with his
colleagues, and sit carelessly as was his wont, scanning the crowd with a
thoughtful look and leaning both his emaciated arms on the arms of his oak
chair; bending over as usual to a colleague and drawing his papers nearer he
would interchange whispers with him, and then suddenly raising his eyes and
sitting erect would pronounce certain words and open the proceedings. But
suddenly in the midst of those proceedings the pain in his side, regardless of
the stage the proceedings had reached, would begin its own gnawing work. Ivan
Ilych would turn his attention to it and try to drive the thought of it away,
but without success. *It* would come and stand before him and look at him, and
he would be petrified and the light would die out of his eyes, and he would
again begin asking himself whether *It* alone was true. And his colleagues and
subordinates would see with surprise and distress that he, the brilliant and
subtle judge, was becoming confused and making mistakes. He would shake
himself, try to pull himself together, manage somehow to bring the sitting to a
close, and return home with the sorrowful consciousness that his judicial
labours could not as formerly hide from him what he wanted them to hide, and
could not deliver him from *It*. And what was worst of all was that *It* drew
his attention to itself not in order to make him take some action but only that
he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and without
doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.
And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolations —
new screens — and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but
then they immediately fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It*
penetrated them and nothing could veil *It*.
In these latter days he would go into the drawing-room he had arranged — that
drawing-room where he had fallen and for the sake of which (how bitterly
ridiculous it seemed) he had sacrificed his life — for he knew that his illness
originated with that knock. He would enter and see that something had scratched
the polished table. He would look for the cause of this and find that it was
the bronze ornamentation of an album, that had got bent. He would take up the
expensive album which he had lovingly arranged, and feel vexed with his daughter
and her friends for their untidiness - - for the album was torn here and there
and some of the photographs turned upside down. He would put it carefully in
order and bend the ornamentation back into position. Then it would occur to him
to place all those things in another corner of the room, near the plants. He
would call the footman, but his daughter or wife would come to help him. They
would not agree, and his wife would contradict him, and he would dispute and
grow angry. But that was all right, for then he did not think about *It*. *It*
was invisible.
But then, when he was moving something himself, his wife would say: "Let the
servants do it. You will hurt yourself again." And suddenly *It* would flash
through the screen and he would see it. It was just a flash, and he hoped it
would disappear, but he would involuntarily pay attention to his side. "It sits
there as before, gnawing just the same!" And he could no longer forget *It*,
but could distinctly see it looking at him from behind the flowers. "What is it
all for?"
"It really is so! I lost my life over that curtain as I might have done when
storming a fort. Is that possible? How terrible and how stupid. It can't be
true! It can't, but it is."
He would go to his study, lie down, and again be alone with *It*: face to
face with *It*. And nothing could be done with *It* except to look at it and
shudder.