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The Death of Ivan Ilyich
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich

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Ivan Ilyich, a high court judge, becomes seriously ill and faces a long and gruelling battle with death. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is more than a story about death, however. It leads the reader through a pensive, metaphysical exploration of the reason for death and what it means to truly live.German philosopher Martin Heidegger refers to the novella as an illustration of Being towards death.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherSovereign
Release dateJul 15, 2013
ISBN9781909676589
Author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy grew up in Russia, raised by a elderly aunt and educated by French tutors while studying at Kazen University before giving up on his education and volunteering for military duty. When writing his greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy drew upon his diaries for material. At eighty-two, while away from home, he suffered from declining health and died in Astapovo, Riazan in 1910.

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Rating: 3.9603376096033407 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bought and read this book over the weekend in Montreal. I was really enchanted by the portrayal of Ivan's decline and death, being so detailed. I really empathize with his struggle to understand death as a thing that truly applies to / effects him. The descriptive quality (as noted by many other readers) of Tolstoy's prose was readily apparent, and I enjoyed it immensely. For sure, this is one that begs to be re-read. I'm especially interested in revisiting the 1st chapter, which is from the perspective of his "friends" who, greedy for his social position, callously snub his funeral and bereaved wife. Highly recommended for those interested in getting into Russian lit since it is so short and sweet.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The subject of this short classic is the process of dying and finally, acceptance of death. It's a look into the mind of a dying man who had lived an ordinary life as a high-court judge, had a family and friends, and had not given much thought about dying some day. After being ill for a long time, he realizes that he will never get well again and uses the time to reflect and question how well he lived his life. Was it meaningful? He struggles with redemption and forgiveness as all of us would in his situation.I felt it was depressing about Ivan's agonizing end. The novel was written in 1886 and was easy to read. Leo Tolstoy put lots of meaning into a short novel and gave me plenty to think about.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novella opens with a scene reminiscent of the one shown to Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Ivan Ilyich has died, and his friends, colleagues, and relations gather for the funeral, but also to advance their own interests. Who will be promoted into his old position? Can his wife wrangle a better pension out of the government? And the weekly card game will go on as scheduled, won’t it? The reader then gets a survey of Ivan’s life, from school days, to married life, through career advancements, and through the illness that eventually leads to his death. There’s a lot of focus on the big questions: why death, and why pain? Did Ivan lead the life he was meant to lead? What if he got it all wrong?One gets the sense that Tolstoy was working through his thoughts on these matters. It would be silly to say that I “enjoyed” this book, but I appreciated it (though, when it comes to the Russians, I’ll take Dostoyevsky over Tolstoy any day). It’s a big subject for such a small volume; I’m glad I finally read it, though I probably won’t read it again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book is nothing more about than the life and death of an ordinary everyday man but Tolstoy was able to write this almost like a poem, beautifully and emotionally.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wonderful from the start, where a colleague goes to the main character's funeral out of a sense of duty and the small inner dialogues and inner calculations that go on about Iván Ilyich's death, back through the (rather vapid) life of Ivan.Wonderful writing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ivan Ilyich Golovin is a lawyer and is used to exercising his authority in all technical, proprietary matters of the law when hearing witnesses or defendants in court. His marriage is no longer a happy one, and he avoids familial situations whenever they interfere with his interests. One day, while remodeling his new St. Petersburg apartment before the arrival of his family, he falls from a ladder and sustains a bruise on his side from a window handle. The pain, instead of going away, steadily worsens, and Ivan Ilyich's health deteriorates. The doctors can bring no useful insight, and all around him either insist he'll soon be better or think to themselves that at least it isn't them. Ivan Ilyich, left alone in his repulsive sickness, comes to a realization of the falseness of his life and the lives of everyone he knows. He tries to come to terms with Death and to be prepared when it comes. This book (novella) (story) is not much more than a hundred pages, and is a compelling meditation on death. As we would expect from Tolstoy, however, it is also a criticism of the falseness of society at the time, who refuse to recognize death, but keep on leading their empty lives. In this way it serves as a gentle cautionary tale, provoking the reader to reflect on the state of his own life, to ask himself by what principles he lives, and would he be ready if called to meet Death himself.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The thoughts and feelings of a man towards his family and those around him as he gets progressively more ill and is then dying from a wasting disease that sounds like cancer. The opening chapters are quite light-hearted with some ruefully amusing reflections on marriage and attitudes towards ones career, but then the mood becomes much darker and he ends being cynical about his family, seeing them as wishing his death to come sooner so they can be free of the burden of caring for him. A short story but one with a lot to say about the human condition and by no means necessarily tied to its Russian background.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent, soulful book in the vein of The Trial, and Crime and Punishment. Vladimir Nabokov sums my views of this Novella quite well.In his lectures on Russian Literature Russian born Novelist and critic Vladimir Nabokov argues that, for Tolstoy, a sinful life is (such as Ivan's was), moral death. Therefore death, the return of the soul to God is, for Tolstoy, moral life . To quote Nabokov: "The Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond death is God's living light, then Ivan died into a new life- Life with a capital L."(Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich: Lectures On Russain Literature pg.237: Harcourt Edition)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I spotted this on a friend's shelf, borrowed it, and read it in an afternoon. I found it to be an interesting - and arrestingly short - contemplation of the end of life and life's worth/value. The introduction was extremely helpful in understanding the context of Tolstoy's complete antithesis regard for life in comparison with his character. I'm not exactly sure why this stands out for historians as a unique book of its kind, as the introduction reveals and reminds that other such literature exists, perhaps better. A good first experience with the author nonetheless.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very well written novella by Tolstoy. I was worried after "Anna Karenina" Tolstoy might have lost his way as he became older. However this was much more like the Tolstoy I remember from "War and Peace". A very affecting study of one man's life and death.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This classic novella was chosen by my university as their pick for The Big Read- a national reading event in North America sponsored by grants from the Nation Endowment for the Arts. Additionally, it was my first real essay into Russian literature. The novella begins, aptly, with the death of Ivan Ilyich, a 45 year old judge in St. Petersburg. His coworkers receive the news, and though they seem to be saddened by the event they also are very concerned over who will get promoted to where in order to fill Ivan's vacancy. One close friend of Ivan's, Peter, drags himself reluctantly to the funeral, only to be grilled by the not-so-grieving widow over Ivan's pension. He finally escapes, and wanders off to play bridge and rid his mind of the death.After briefly covering his death, the story turns to Ivan's life, which it terms as most simple...and most horrifying. We learn that Ivan skimmed through most of his life in a fairly ordinary way: grow up, go to school, have father set up a career, sow some wild oats, find a girl, marry, raise a family, get promoted, buy a house, decorate the house. It is decorating the house in fact that starts the grim chain of events. In trying to show the drapier how to hang curtains, Ivan slips off the ladder and bumps his side against a knob. Seemingly no real harm is done, just a small bruise.Yet that bruise leads him to his death. First he can't taste and enjoy food, then he can't focus on playing cards. Doctor after doctor try various treatments, but all for naught. He steadily declines, becoming more and more angry, frightened, and unreasonable. As the end draws near, he begins screaming- three days and nights he screams.Finally, he has two hours left to live. He stops screaming, stops fighting, and faces his death. it is in this moment that he finally finds peace- perhaps for the first time in his life. He thinks back and sees that his life was not all that it could or should have been, but he knows he can rectify that. Looking at those around him, he sees the pain that his illness is causing them. As he sees this, he realizes that his pain is hard to feel, that it is no longer dominating his mind and soul. He can no longer see death, and instead Ivan sees the joy and light ahead of him- and so he dies.I really enjoyed the story. Tolstoy masterfully begins by putting you in no doubt of the end so the focus is completely on the journey to death. It is undeniably depressing, but the end has a beauty and serenity to it that justifies the whole novella.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Two spoilers: Ivan dies, and this book is great.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was one of my favorite stories of all time in 1999. I read it over and over again, thinking it contained and could reveal all the wisdom in the world.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    a good story of a dying man. good introduction
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Nice. Very nice short story. A lot of self-reflection, which is right up my street, as it were.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Disclaimer: This book should not be read the day you find out that your grandfather has passed and you were sent home from work because you were sobbing too hard to be intelligible.

    Even if you've already finished half of it and there's not much left.

    Even if the first chapter, with work acquaintance friends discussing the death, then one showing up to the house to pay his respects, only to feel disaffected and take off for a card game, is actually pretty darkly funny.

    Even if what you've read since then has been a pretty matter-of-fact discussion of Ivan's career and life so far, and hasn't really been sad at all.

    Because when the turn comes, with the mysterious illness and the search for a diagnosis and the slow decline at home and the alienation from all those who are well and do not understand, who want to go on with their concerns of life and the living...

    Well, it's best to put the book down and come back to it in a few days. Go cuddle with the kids on the couch.

    Called a masterpiece on death and dying.

    I concur.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Until the nature of his injury makes itself known Ivan Ilych ambles through life, succeeding in both his career and personal life (at least he keeps up the facade of success in those realms). Yet Ivan Ilych never exhibits any passion, nor does he examine the path he has taken and where it might lead.

    When a foolish accident brings home his own mortality, however, Ivan Ilych is forced to consider all the things he had taken for granted before. His unhappy marriage, his career that he sometimes enjoyed but largely performed for the sake of a salary and social advancement, and his life in general where he never stood for or against anything, all provide grist for Ivan's tormented mind. The nature of life and the inevitability of death spur in Ivan thoughts about dying for the first time. Tolstoy gives us a dying man who is bitter that everyone else is continuing their lives as if "the world was going on as usual." Of course, to everyone except the dying man, it is. He gives us a man who always thought of himself as death's exception. Everyone has probably done something similar, at least at times, because that thought is so much easier to grasp compared to the idea that we are mortal and will be dead someday, our consciousness ending like a candle being snuffed. He gives us a man railing against the cruelty of God while simultaneously railing against God's absence. Finally Tolstoy lets Ivan Ilych begin to examine his own life, and as he does so he realizes that his moments of purest happiness were during childhood, and since then his life has been one big death-spiral, before giving Ivan a moment of forgiveness and what I interpret as divine absolution.

    Tolstoy in this book tells what I imagine is a universal tale of a person trying to reconcile themselves with his or her own mortality. We probably have all had the thoughts that go through Ivan's head in our own head at some point in our lives- if anything Ivan Ilych thinks about hasn't occurred to you in at least a general sense before then you probably don't spend much time thinking- but Tolstoy presents these thoughts well. That being said, his writing did not spur any realization about life or death that I didn't have before I began the book. Maybe I contemplate my own mortality more than most people do? I think that, despite the lack of new insight, the book could have been great if the scenes of Iva Ilych's terror and suffering were portrayed with great prose that made the scenes depicted viscerally striking. I didn't find the prose to be particularly impressive, unfortunately, though that may be the fault of the Maude translation. I also thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, at least if you interpret the ending as his soul receiving forgiveness, as it undercuts the fear of death and the ensuing nothingness that was such an integral part of the story up until that point. I hope Tolstoy really believed in such forgiveness, and didn't include it so as to give a more uplifting ending, because the story would have been better off without it.

    If you've never really thought about death, it's worth reading a book that contemplates such a thing. There are plenty to choose from: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Gilead, The Tartar Steppe, or Hamlet just to name a few (death is hardly a rare theme). Still, The Death of Ivan Ilych stands out as perhaps the work most focused on death. Choose it if that sounds appealing to you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In this short novella Tolstoy ingeniously unmasks the raw emotions and the puzzled lamentations of one Ivan Ilyich, a typical personage of his time, as he lies dying while suffering physical and mental agony (the latter being as excruciating as the former), trying to grasp the seeming "unfairness" of his position and finally arriving at some startling realizations about his life. The surrounding characters come under harsh light as they hover around the dying man and reveal their most unattractive human traits, and Ivan Ilyich is finally able to see through the veil of human hypocrisy. Not an upbeat story in the least. But one with a pretty clever insight into human nature. It also does point to the unrelenting frailty of life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A brilliant short work. He captured the psychology of a dying man and those around him with a great deal of thoroughness. The end of Illych had him questioning so many of the silly societal mores which he had self-imposed, but in the end, his resignation to the peaceful pull of death put the angst behind him. Wonderfully written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh non-Gothic, gothic horror. Oh sweaty relief. (ew)

    I wish I'd been a writing sort in high school--the books I read then were arguably more interesting than the ones I read now, brief Michael Crichton preoccupation excepted.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is my first venture into the land of Tolstoy. As with Camus, I was intimidated by the name 'Tolstoy' and, as with Camus, this should never have been so. The Death of Ivan Ilych is a rather poignant, striking novella written following a time where it is said Tolstoy went through a religious conversion. The book provokes thoughts around mortality and provides us with a harsh lesson in 'live life well'.Despite the book title, the story focusses upon the life which Ivan Ilych felt he had lived and the process of dying he goes through rather than the death itself. It is striking, emotive and, at times, frighteningly remorseful. It's that 3am in the morning kind of stuff. If you're the kind of person who lies in bed agonising over your mortality, that funny twitch in your arm, pain in your chest or asking yourself "Why is John's car far superior to mine?" "Is the cat ill running around like that or just being a cat?" then the themes running through this wonderful novella will certainly chime.Ivan Ilych is a well-respected judge who receives an unspecified diagnosis but deduces that he is terminally ill. As his condition deteriorates, we witness Ivan Ilych struggling to come to terms with his condition and the fact that he is dying. He begins to look back on his life with some sadness and regret."Lately in that loneliness in which he found himself....in these late days of horrific loneliness Ivan Ilych lived only by his memories of the past. One after another he imagined scenes from his life. He would always begin with the most recent and proceed to the earliest, to his childhood, and settle there." p.92Such memories proved painful to bear. On looking back through his life, Ivan Ilych realises that as he grew older, more removed from the innocence of childhood, as the worries of life, his career and family took hold, the more superficial and shallow his life had become."...the further back he looked, the more life there had been in him; both the more sweetness to life, and the more of life itself....There had been one point of light far back at the start of everything, and ever since everything had gotten blacker and blacker, and moved quicker and quicker." p.93Ivan Ilych starts to look on his friends, colleagues and wife with the same feelings of bitterness, regret and hate which he has for life and himself. The only moments of tenderness and understanding he finds are in Gerasim, the butler's assistant, who is able to emphasise and understand his needs as Ivan Ilych views others around him as looking inwards to their own needs."His marriage...so accidental, and such a disappointment, with his wife's bad breath, and her sensuality, and their hypocrisy. His moribound professional life, the obession with money...The further on in years the more deadening it became. In perfectly measured steps I went downhill imagining I was on my way up.... In public opinion I was on my way up, and the whole time my life was slipping away from under me....and now it's all over, and it's time to die."p.88The inevitability of death pervades the book and feeds into this readers mortality. As Ivan Ilych struggles to come to terms with his life, dying and death so the reader is also carried along and forced to ask questions of his/her own mortality and life. The fact that Ivan Ilych is terminally ill is, for want of a better word, irrelevant. Death is inevitable - we are all dying, we will all face death and this is the only thing we can be sure about in life. The important lesson we should learn is how to spend our time wisely as we move towards this inevitability.I'm so glad that this is my first experience of reading Tolstoy. It's a quick, compelling read with so much feeling and emotion packed into the 104 pages of this edition. It is without doubt a fantastic masterclass in writing where we are witness to emotions being laid bare for all to see.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Think over whether you live the life that you want to live or simply do the "correct" things unquestionably.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Normally a book that looks this closely at death would, I'm afraid, terrify me. I have enough anxiety already, I don't need to think about the "dragging pain" in Ivan Ilyich's side, which -- being a doctor's daughter -- I could diagnose fairly easily as some kind of cancer, quite probably cancer of the gallbladder. That "dragging pain" is the giveaway to me, because it was in all the descriptions of the sort of pain cancer of the gallbladder causes. I know all about that because of the anxious period before I was diagnosed with gallstones. Anyway, it occurs to me that because Tolstoy never uses a specific word, never tells you specifically what is wrong with Ivan -- in fact, Ivan himself never knows -- it can be whatever you fear. For me, cancer is the obvious one.

    And okay, yes, this book did terrify me a bit, but I think in the way that it would terrify anybody. Imagining lying at the point of death and questioning if your life was of any use, if you did anything that really made you happy, if you did anything that really made you satisfied...

    This is nothing like Tolstoy's other books. There's a narrow focus on a single character, and -- in this translation at least -- the words are simple and directly to the point. Tolstoy's gift for a slightly satirical tone is in evidence. Ivan is not a particularly good man, but he's very much an everyman -- you will see yourself in Ivan, unless you really do have an ego so big you can't even be brought to imagine facing your own death.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wish I'd gotten one of the many collections of Tolstoy's novellas rather than just The Death... I would recommend you do so yourself if you're interested in this great Russian writer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is why Tolstoy is one of the greats. Because his work reads on multiple levels, and because his characters are never caricatures just there to hold a spear or prop up some scenery.

    On one level this is the story of the life and death of a not particularly likeable functionary. On another its an indictment of a particular society in a particular time, in which isolation from and indifference to others are the price of privilege and comfort and how a man loses himself in that devil's bargain. On another its a story of how we all tend to lose sight of the important things in life in the process of living it. On another it is the story of how even a not particularly likeable functionary is still a human being, with the fears and feelings and loves and losses that we all share as part of our common humanity.

    So much going on in such a small space.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Word I wasn't expecting to read in this bleak masterpiece: pasties. (Hugh Alpin translator, UK's Hesperus Press)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the story of the life and - as the title indicates - the death of an ordinary man. Ivan Ilych is not a particularly likeable character, nor are his wife and children, nor the colleagues who also appear in the narrative. And yet, the story of Ivan's death is powerful and moving, simply but exquisitely told. Ivan's anger, his fear, his resentment are all unflinchingly described.

    I've spent the past few months acutely aware of mortality. A close friend died suddenly a few months ago. Two other women I know well have inoperable cancer. My mother is frail and elderly and every time I see her I know I may never see her alive again. That sense of being surrounded by death in life is something that all of us face as we age.

    Talking about dying and death is not something we do much of in our society, even though it is something which occurs every moment of every day. Reading this book, as short as it is, brings the reader face to face with that perience. No matter how ordinary a person, no matter how ordinary their life, each death is unique - an extraordinary experience for the person concerned.

    This is not easy reading, but it is something to read and remember.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A man dies slowly and in great agony. He ponders the meaning of life, and this increases his anguish: even worse than the physical pain of a slow, lingering death is the spiritual anguish of realising he has wasted his life.Tolstoy's main target here is dishonesty and hypocrisy. This is established from the opening scene, when Ivan Ilyich's death is announced, and the reaction of his colleagues is to think about how this will affect their promotion chances, while speaking the usual lines about it being a "sad business" and so on. Even his widow, Praskovya Fiodorovna, is more concerned about herself than her dead husband: after telling a mourner about his three days and nights of incessant screaming, she says "Oh, what I have gone through!" Then she tries to find out how she can increase the government pension money due to her from her husband's death.Then Tolstoy takes us on a quick tour back through Ivan Ilyich's life, showing us that he also participated fully in this dishonesty, concerning himself with appearances and advancement. In every decision, even marriage, he is heavily influenced by what other people will think. With each promotion in his career as a judge, he attains more power and money, but it's never enough. At each stage he simply spends more money imitating people higher in the social scale than he is, and wanting to attain that next level. It's not coincidental that he sustains his fatal injury while climbing a ladder to show a workman exactly how he wants a new curtain to be hung. The novel is saturated with vanity, pettiness and materialism, and they cause Ivan Ilyich's spiritual and physical death.Long before Kubler-Ross, Tolstoy hit on the stages of grief in the character Ivan Ilyich. He goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, although not always in that order. He often swings violently between the different emotions, depending on his own state of mind and on outside events like a doctor getting his hopes up.The only examples of honesty in the book are in children (both Ivan Ilyich's own childhood and his young son Vassya) and in the character of Gerassim, the butler's assistant. Vassya and Gerassim don't lie to him or see him as an inconvenience - they display simple human affection and love for him.Indeed, love seems to be what Tolstoy is saying life is all about - not romantic love necessarily, but a broader kind of love for your fellow human beings and for God. This is what was missing from Ivan Ilyich's life as he immersed himself in petty advancement and the acquisition of meaningless accoutrements. This deathbed revelation at first causes him great agony as he rages against all the lost time, but in the end it's what allows him to find peace.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Leo Tolstoy examines death up close. The story went exactly where I expected it to: old man regrets follies of life on deathbed and turns religious. I felt like this was more a fable or morality tale than a real showcase of human emotions.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Death of Ivan Ilich opens with Ilich's death already a reality in the year of 1882.I found Death of Ivan Ilich to be extremely psychological and painful. Here is a relatively young man of 45 who dies from an unexplained illness after falling off a chair. He bruises his side and mysteriously falls ill a short time later. Even more troublesome - he never recovers from this fall. Was it cancer? Many scholars seem to think so. What I found particularly disturbing is the lack of care and sympathy his family feels for him. His wife and daughter all but cast him aside once they realize he is dying. Only his long-faithful butler remains true to him.The actual death of Ivan goes largely unexamined. Instead we crawl into Ivan's mind as the dying process takes its toll. In the beginning he is indignant, believing as a good man who has led a moral life he does not deserve such a fate. He questions his life's purpose and begins to compare it to that of his butler. While he never accepts his death at the end he seems to understand it.

Book preview

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilych

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New Edition, World Classics

Published by Sovereign

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This Edition

First published in 2013

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Editor: Max Bollinger

Copyright © 2013 Sovereign

Cover design and artwork © 2013 urban-pic.co.uk

All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The greatest care has been taken in compiling this book. However, no responsibility can be accepted by the publishers or compilers for the accuracy of the information presented.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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ISBN: 9781909676589 (ebk)

Bref: DII-03

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

INSPIRING BOOKS

CHAPTER 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 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

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