The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man

by Leo Tolstoy

  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 logic27—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 Katenka28, 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 établissement29 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 rol
led 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.”

  “Then hold my legs up like that a bit, could you?”

  “Of course I can.” And Gerasim lifted up his legs, and it appeared to Ivan Ilyich that in that position he felt no pain at all.

  “But what about the firewood?”

  “Don’t you worry about that, sir. We’ll find time.”

  Ivan Ilyich told Gerasim to sit down and hold his legs, and talked to him. And, strange to say, it seemed to him that he felt better while Gerasim was holding up his legs.

  From that time Ivan Ilyich began calling for Gerasim occasionally. He would make him hold his legs up on his shoulders, and liked talking to him. Gerasim did so lightly, willingly, with a simplicity and kindness that touched Ivan Ilyich. He was offended by health, strength, and good spirits in everyone else, but Gerasim’s strength and cheerfulness soothed him rather than hurting him.

  Ivan Ilyich suffered most of all from lies—the lie that everyone accepted, for some reason, that he was just ill, not dying, that he need only keep calm and take his medicine and something splendid would come of it. And he knew that whatever the medicines might do, nothing would come of it except more agonizing misery and death. He found this lie insufferable; he was tormented by the fact that nobody wanted to admit what he knew—what everyone knew—but chose to lie to him about his dreadful state. They wanted, even forced him to participate in the same lie. Lying—the lie inflicted on him on the eve of his death, the lie which was bound to degrade the fearful, solemn scene of his death to the level of all those visits, curtains, and sturgeons for dinner . . . this was a dreadful affliction for Ivan Ilyich. And—it was strange—many times when they were doing their stuff over him, he was within a whisker of shouting at them, “Stop lying! You know and I know I’m dying, at least you could stop lying to me.” But he never had the spirit to do so. He could see that the terrifying, awesome act of his dying was reduced by everyone around him to the level of a casual unpleasantness, to some extent an offense against propriety (rather in the way people behave to someone who brings a bad smell into the room with him). And this was the propriety he had served all his life. He saw that no one would pity him, because no one even wanted to understand his position. Only Gerasim understood his situation and was sorry for him. It was good for him when Gerasim held his legs on his shoulders, sometimes for whole nights at a stretch, and did not want to go to bed, saying, “You mustn’t worry, Ivan Ilyich, I’ll get my sleep another time,” or when he once slipped into the intimate form of address, saying, “With thee so poorly, how couldn’t I spare a little trouble?” Gerasim alone did not lie to him; it was obvious from everything that he alone understood what was happening, saw no need to hide it, and was simply sorry for his weak and wasted master. Once he even said so straight out, when Ivan Ilyich was sending him away: “We’ll all go someday. Why not take a little trouble?” he said, expressing in this way that he did not grudge his pains precisely because they were taken for a dying man and he hoped that in his own time someone else would take the same pains for him.

  Apart from this lie, or as a result of it, the most painful thing for Ivan Ilyich was that no one pitied him as he wanted to be pitied. At certain moments after long-drawn-out pain, he wanted most of all (ashamed though he would have been to admit it)—he wanted someone to pity him as a sick child is pitied. He wanted them to stroke him, kiss him, cry a little over him, as children are cuddled and consoled. He knew he was an important member of the court, that his beard was going gray, and so it had to be out of the question, but it was still what he wanted. In his relationship with Gerasim there was something close to this, and consequently his relationship with Gerasim comforted him. Ivan Ilyich wants to cry, he wants to be stroked, to have them crying over him—and in comes his friend, court member Shebek, and instead of tears and tenderness Ivan Ilyich puts on a serious, stern expression, a face full of profound thought, and through sheer inertia pronounces his opinion on the implications of the decision taken by the Court of Appeal, and stubbornly insists on his view. More than anything, this lie around him and in himself poisoned the last days of Ivan Ilyich’s life.

  8

  It was morning. It was only morning because Gerasim left and Piotr the footman came in, blew out the candles, drew one curtain, and started quietly tidying up. Morning or evening, Friday or Sunday—it made no difference, it was all one, always the same. Gnawing, agonizing pain, not slackening for a second; the consciousness of life passing hopelessly but still not past; death moving up on him, terrifying, hateful, changeless death which was the one reality, and all the old lies. What were days, weeks, and hours of day to him?

  “Would you care to order tea?”

  Piotr wants tidy routines, and so the gentry must take their tea in the mornings, Ivan Ilyich thought, and answered only “No.”

  “Would you wish to move to the divan?”

  He needs to put the room straight and I’m in the way; I’m dirt and disorder, he thought, and said only, “No, leave me.”

  The footman busied himself awhile. Ivan Ilyich stretched his hand out. The footman came up obsequiously.

  “Would you require something, sir?”

  “My watch.”

  Piotr picked up the watch just by Ivan Ilyich’s hand, and gave it to him.

  “Half past eight. Are the others up?”r />
  “No, your honor. Vassili Ivanovich” (that was his son) “has gone to school. Praskovya Feodorovna gave orders to be woken if you asked for her. Would you require it?”31

  “No, there’s no need.” Should I try some tea? he thought. “Yes, tea . . . you could bring it.”

  Piotr went to the door. Ivan Ilyich grew frightened of being left on his own. How can I stop him? Ah yes, the medicine. “Piotr, give me my medicine.” You never know, maybe the medicine might still help. He took the spoonful and swallowed it. No, it won’t help, that’s all rubbish and lies, he decided, as soon as he encountered the familiar, sickly, hopeless taste. No, I can’t believe in it anymore. But that pain, that pain, I wish it would ease even just for a minute. And he groaned. Piotr came back. “No, go. Bring me the tea.”

  Piotr went out. Left on his own, Ivan Ilyich groaned, not so much from pain, however dreadful it was, as from misery. They’re all the same, all these endless nights and days. Would that it came quicker. What should come quicker? Death, darkness? No, no. Everything is better than death!

  When Piotr came in with the tea tray, Ivan Ilyich stared dazedly at him for a long time, not understanding who he was and why. Piotr was embarrassed by his stare, and his embarrassment brought Ivan Ilyich back to himself.

  “Ah yes, the tea,” he said. “Very well, put it down. Only help me wash and change my shirt.”

  And Ivan Ilyich began washing. With pauses for rest he washed his hands, his face, he brushed his teeth, he started brushing his hair and glanced in the mirror. He became frightened; what was most frightening was the way his hair clung flat to his pallid forehead.

  When they were changing his shirt, he knew it would be even more frightening to look down at his body, and he did not look at himself. But now everything was done. He put on his dressing gown, covered himself with a plaid rug, and sat down to his tea in the armchair. For a minute he felt refreshed, but as soon as he started drinking his tea, there was the same foul taste and pain again. With an effort he finished the tea and lay down, his legs outstretched. He lay back and dismissed Piotr.