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    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

    By Leo Tolstoy

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    HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9781443429351
    Author

    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is the author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, and other classics of Russian literature.

    Read more from Leo Tolstoy

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    • 5/5
      tolstoy is timeless: he can speak to any audience across time and space. these two stories are so impressive. i want to read anna karenina next...but maybe i'll go with more short stories first cuz it's kinda long. :-P

    Book preview

    The Death Of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy

    Chapter I

    During an interval in the Melvinsky 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. Fyodor Vasilyevich warmly maintained that it was not subject to their jurisdiction, Ivan Egorovich maintained the contrary, while Pyotr 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 Ilyich has died!

    You don’t say so!

    Here, read it yourself, replied Pyotr Ivanovich, handing Fyodor Vasilyevich the paper still damp from the press. Surrounded by a black border were the words: Praskovya Fyodorovna Golovina, with profound sorrow, informs relatives and friends of the demise of her beloved husband Ivan Ilyich 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 Ilyich 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 Ilyich’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 Fyodor Vasilyevich. 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 Pyotr 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 Pyotr 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 thought 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 Pyotr 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 Ilyich’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 Ilyich’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.

    Fyodor Vasilyevich and Pyotr Ivanovich had been his nearest acquaintances. Pyotr Ivanovich had studied law with Ivan Ilyich and had considered himself to be under obligations to him.

    Having told his wife at dinnertime of Ivan Ilyich’s death, and of his conjecture that it might be possible to get her brother transferred to their circuit, Pyotr Ivanovich sacrificed his usual nap, put on his evening clothes and drove to Ivan Ilyich’s house.

    At the entrance stood a carriage and two cabs. Leaning against the wall in the hall downstairs near the coat stand was a coffin-lid covered with cloth of gold, ornamented with gold cord and tassels, that had been polished up with metal powder. Two ladies in black were taking off their fur cloaks. Pyotr Ivanovich recognized one of them as Ivan Ilyich’s sister, but the other was a stranger to him. His colleague Schwartz was just coming downstairs, but on seeing Pyotr Ivanovich enter he stopped and winked at him, as if to say: Ivan Ilyich 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 Pyotr Ivanovich.

    Pyotr Ivanovich allowed the ladies to precede him and slowly followed them upstairs. Schwartz did not come down but remained where he was, and Pyotr 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 look in his eyes, indicated by a twist of his eyebrows the room to the right where the body lay.

    Pyotr 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 also bow 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 Pyotr Ivanovich, was strewing something on the floor. Noticing this, Pyotr Ivanovich was immediately aware of a faint odour of a decomposing body.

    The last time he had called on Ivan Ilyich, Pyotr Ivanovich had seen Gerasim in the study. Ivan Ilyich had been particularly fond of him and he was performing the duty of a sick nurse.

    Pyotr Ivanovich continued to make the sign of the cross slightly inclining his head in an intermediate direction between the coffin, the church reader, and the icons on the table in a corner of the room. Afterwards, when it seemed to him

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