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 leaving the room, crossing themselves as they did so. An old woman
was standing motionless, and a lady with strangely arched eyebrows was saying
something to her in a whisper. A vigorous, resolute Church Reader, in a
frock-coat, was reading something in a loud voice with an expression that
precluded any contradiction. The butler's assistant, Gerasim, stepping lightly
in front of Peter Ivanovich, was strewing something on the floor. Noticing
this, Peter Ivanovich was immediately aware of a faint odour of a decomposing
body.
The last time he had called on Ivan Ilych, Peter Ivanovich had seen Gerasim
in the study. Ivan Ilych had been particularly fond of him and he was performing
the duty of a sick nurse.
Peter Ivanovich continued to make the sign of the cross slightly inclining
his head in an intermediate direction between the coffin, the Reader, and the
icons on the table in a corner of the room. Afterwards, when it seemed to him
that this movement of his arm in crossing himself had gone on too long, he
stopped and began to look at the corpse.
The dead man lay, as dead men always lie, in a specially heavy way, his rigid
limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the coffin, with the head forever bowed on
the pillow. His yellow waxen brow with bald patches over his sunken temples was
thrust up in the way peculiar to the dead, the protruding nose seeming to press
on the upper lip. He was much changed and grown even thinner since Peter
Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as is always the case with the dead, his face
was handsomer and above all more dignified than when he was alive. the
expression on the face said that what was necessary had been accomplished, and
accomplished rightly. Besides this there was in that expression a reproach and
a warning to the living. This warning seemed to Peter Ivanovich out of place,
or at least not applicable to him. He felt a certain discomfort and so he
hurriedly crossed himself once more and turned and went out of the door — too
hurriedly and too regardless of propriety, as he himself was aware.
Schwartz was waiting for him in the adjoining room with legs spread wide
apart and both hands toying with his top-hat behind his back. The mere sight of
that playful, well-groomed, and elegant figure refreshed Peter Ivanovich. He
felt that Schwartz was above all these happenings and would not surrender to any
depressing influences. His very look said that this incident of a church
service for Ivan Ilych could not be a sufficient reason for infringing the order
of the session — in other words, that it would certainly not prevent his
unwrapping a new pack of cards and shuffling them that evening while a footman
placed fresh candles on the table: in fact, that there was no reason for
supposing that this incident would hinder their spending the evening agreeably.
Indeed he said this in a whisper as Peter Ivanovich passed him, proposing
that they should meet for a game at Fedor Vasilievich's. But apparently Peter
Ivanovich was not destined to play bridge that evening. Praskovya Fedorovna (a
short, fat woman who despite all efforts to the contrary had continued to
broaden steadily from her shoulders downwards and who had the same
extraordinarily arched eyebrows as the lady who had been standing by the
coffin), dressed all in black, her head covered with lace, came out of her own
room with some other ladies, conducted them to the room where the dead body lay,
and said: "The service will begin immediately. Please go in."
Schwartz, making an indefinite bow, stood still, evidently neither accepting
nor declining this invitation. Praskovya Fedorovna recognizing Peter Ivanovich,
sighed, went close up to him, took his hand, and said: "I know you were a true
friend to Ivan Ilych..." and looked at him awaiting some suitable response. And
Peter Ivanovich knew that, just as it had been the right thing to cross himself
in that room, so what he had to do here was to press her hand, sigh, and say,
"Believe me..." So he did all this and as he did it felt that the desired
result had been achieved: that both he and she were touched.
"Come with me. I want to speak to you before it begins," said the widow.
"Give me your arm."
Peter Ivanovich gave her his arm and they went to the inner rooms, passing
Schwartz who winked at Peter Ivanovich compassionately.
"That does for our bridge! Don's object if we find another player. Perhaps
you can cut in when you do escape," said his playful look.
Peter Ivanovich sighed still more deeply and despondently, and Praskovya
Fedorovna pressed his arm gratefully. When they reached the drawing-room,
upholstered in pink cretonne and lighted by a dim lamp, they sat down at the
table — she on a sofa and Peter Ivanovich on a low pouffe, the springs of which
yielded spasmodically under his weight. Praskovya Fedorovna had been on the
point of warning him to take another seat, but felt that such a warning was out
of keeping with her present condition and so changed her mind. As he sat down
on the pouffe Peter Ivanovich recalled how Ivan Ilych had arranged this room and
had consulted him regarding this pink cretonne with green leaves. The whole
room was full of furniture and knick-knacks, and on her way to the sofa the lace
of the widow's black shawl caught on the edge of the table. Peter Ivanovich
rose to detach it, and the springs of the pouffe, relieved of his weight, rose
also and gave him a push. The widow began detaching her shawl herself, and
Peter Ivanovich again sat down, suppressing the rebellious springs of the pouffe
under him. But the widow had not quite freed herself and Peter Ivanovich got up
again, and again the pouffe rebelled and even creaked. When this was all over
she took out a clean cambric handkerchief and began to weep. The episode with
the shawl and the struggle with the pouffe had cooled Peter Ivanovich's emotions
and he sat there with a sullen look on his face. This awkward situation was
interrupted by Sokolov, Ivan Ilych's butler, who came to report that the plot in
the cemetery that Praskovya Fedorovna had chosen would cost tow hundred rubles.
She stopped weeping and, looking at Peter Ivanovich with the air of a victim,
remarked in French that it was very hard for her. Peter Ivanovich made a silent
gesture signifying his full conviction that it must indeed be so.
"Please smoke," she said in a magnanimous yet crushed voice, and turned to
discuss with Sokolov the price of the plot for the grave.
Peter Ivanovich while lighting his cigarette heard her inquiring very
circumstantially into the prices of different plots in the cemetery and finally
decide which she would take. when that was done she gave instructions about
engaging the choir. Sokolov then left the room.
"I look after everything myself," she told Peter Ivanovich, shifting the
albums that lay on the table; and noticing that the table was endangered by his
cigarette-ash, she immediately passed him an ash-tray, saying as she did so: "I
consider it an affectation to say that my grief prevents my attending to
practical affairs. On the contrary, if anything can — I won't say console me,
but — distract me, it is seeing to everything concerning him." She again took
out her handkerchief as if preparing to cry, but suddenly, as if mastering her
feeling, she shook herself and began to speak calmly. "But there is something I
want to talk to you about."
Peter Ivanovich bowed, keeping control of the springs of the pouffe, which
immediately began quivering under him.
"He suffered terribly the last few days."
"Did he?" said Peter Ivanovich.
"Oh, terribly! He screamed unceasingly, not for minutes but for hours. for
the last three days he screamed incessantly. It was unendurable. I cannot
understand how I bore it; you could hear him three rooms off. Oh, what I have
suffered!"
"Is it possible that he was conscious all that time?" asked Peter
Ivanovich.
"Yes," she whispered. "To the last moment. He took leave of us a quarter of
an hour before he died, and asked us to take Volodya away."
The thought of the suffering of this man he had known so intimately, first as
a merry little boy, then as a schoolmate, and later as a grown-up colleague,
suddenly struck Peter Ivanovich with horror, despite an unpleasant consciousness
of his own and this woman's dissimulation. He again saw that brow, and that
nose pressing down on the lip, and felt afraid for himself.
"Three days of frightful suffering and the death! Why, that might suddenly,
at any time, happen to me," he thought, and for a moment felt terrified. But —
he did not himself know how — the customary reflection at once occurred to him
that this had happened to Ivan Ilych and not to him, and that it should not and
could not happen to him, and that to think that it could would be yielding to
depressing which he ought not to do, as Schwartz's expression plainly showed.
After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt reassured, and began to ask with
interest about the details of Ivan Ilych's death, as though death was an
accident natural to Ivan Ilych but certainly not to himself.
After many details of the really dreadful physical sufferings Ivan Ilych had
endured (which details he learnt only from the effect those sufferings had
produced on Praskovya Fedorovna's nerves) the widow apparently found it
necessary to get to business.
"Oh, Peter Ivanovich, how hard it is! How terribly, terribly hard!" and she
again began to weep.
Peter Ivanovich sighed and waited for her to finish blowing her nose. When
she had don so he said, "Believe me..." and she again began talking and brought
out what was evidently her chief concern with him — namely, to question him as
to how she could obtain a grant of money from the government on the occasion of
her husband's death. She made it appear that she was asking Peter Ivanovich's
advice about her pension, but he soon saw that she already knew about that to
the minutest detail, more even than he did himself. She knew how much could be
got out of the government in consequence of her husband's death, but wanted to
find out whether she could not possibly extract something more. Peter Ivanovich
tried to think of some means of doing so, but after reflecting for a while and,
out of propriety, condemning the government for its niggardliness, he said he
thought that nothing more could be got. Then she sighed and evidently began to
devise means of getting rid of her visitor. Noticing this, he put out his
cigarette, rose, pressed her hand, and went out into the anteroom.
In the dining-room where the clock stood that Ivan Ilych had liked so much
and had bought at an antique shop, Peter Ivanovich met a priest and a few
acquaintances who had come to attend the service, and he recognized Ivan Ilych's
daughter, a handsome young woman. She was in black and her slim figure appeared
slimmer than ever. She had a gloomy, determined, almost angry expression, and
bowed to Peter Ivanovich as though he were in some way to blame.
Behind her, with the same offended look, stood a wealthy young man, and
examining magistrate, whom Peter Ivanovich also knew and who was her fiance, as
he had heard. He bowed mournfully to them and was about to pass into the
death-chamber, when from under the stairs appeared the figure of Ivan Ilych's
schoolboy son, who was extremely like his father. He seemed a little Ivan Ilych,
such as Peter Ivanovich remembered when they studied law together. His
tear-stained eyes had in them the look that is seen in the eyes of boys of
thirteen or fourteen who are not pure-minded. When he saw Peter Ivanovich he
scowled morosely and shamefacedly. Peter Ivanovich nodded to him and entered
the death-chamber. The service began: candles, groans, incense, tears, and
sobs. Peter Ivanovich stood looking gloomily down at his feet. He did not look
once at the dead man, did not yield to any depressing influence, and was one of
the first to leave the room. There was no one in the anteroom, but Gerasim
darted out of the dead man's room, rummaged with his strong hands among the fur
coats to find Peter Ivanovich's and helped him on with it.
"Well, friend Gerasim," said Peter Ivanovich, so as to say something. "It's
a sad affair, isn't it?"
"It's God will. We shall all come to it some day," said Gerasim, displaying
his teeth — the even white teeth of a healthy peasant — and, like a man in the
thick of urgent work, he briskly opened the front door, called the coachman,
helped Peter Ivanovich into the sledge, and sprang back to the porch as if in
readiness for what he had to do next.
Peter Ivanovich found the fresh air particularly pleasant after the smell of
incense, the dead body, and carbolic acid.
"Where to sir?" asked the coachman.
"It's not too late even now....I'll call round on Fedor Vasilievich."
He accordingly drove there and found them just finishing the first rubber, so
that it was quite convenient for him to cut in.
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 leaving the room, crossing themselves as they did so. An old woman
was standing motionless, and a lady with strangely arched eyebrows was saying
something to her in a whisper. A vigorous, resolute Church Reader, in a
frock-coat, was reading something in a loud voice with an expression that
precluded any contradiction. The butler's assistant, Gerasim, stepping lightly
in front of Peter Ivanovich, was strewing something on the floor. Noticing
this, Peter Ivanovich was immediately aware of a faint odour of a decomposing
body.
The last time he had called on Ivan Ilych, Peter Ivanovich had seen Gerasim
in the study. Ivan Ilych had been particularly fond of him and he was performing
the duty of a sick nurse.
Peter Ivanovich continued to make the sign of the cross slightly inclining
his head in an intermediate direction between the coffin, the Reader, and the
icons on the table in a corner of the room. Afterwards, when it seemed to him
that this movement of his arm in crossing himself had gone on too long, he
stopped and began to look at the corpse.
The dead man lay, as dead men always lie, in a specially heavy way, his rigid
limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the coffin, with the head forever bowed on
the pillow. His yellow waxen brow with bald patches over his sunken temples was
thrust up in the way peculiar to the dead, the protruding nose seeming to press
on the upper lip. He was much changed and grown even thinner since Peter
Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as is always the case with the dead, his face
was handsomer and above all more dignified than when he was alive. the
expression on the face said that what was necessary had been accomplished, and
accomplished rightly. Besides this there was in that expression a reproach and
a warning to the living. This warning seemed to Peter Ivanovich out of place,
or at least not applicable to him. He felt a certain discomfort and so he
hurriedly crossed himself once more and turned and went out of the door — too
hurriedly and too regardless of propriety, as he himself was aware.
Schwartz was waiting for him in the adjoining room with legs spread wide
apart and both hands toying with his top-hat behind his back. The mere sight of
that playful, well-groomed, and elegant figure refreshed Peter Ivanovich. He
felt that Schwartz was above all these happenings and would not surrender to any
depressing influences. His very look said that this incident of a church
service for Ivan Ilych could not be a sufficient reason for infringing the order
of the session — in other words, that it would certainly not prevent his
unwrapping a new pack of cards and shuffling them that evening while a footman
placed fresh candles on the table: in fact, that there was no reason for
supposing that this incident would hinder their spending the evening agreeably.
Indeed he said this in a whisper as Peter Ivanovich passed him, proposing
that they should meet for a game at Fedor Vasilievich's. But apparently Peter
Ivanovich was not destined to play bridge that evening. Praskovya Fedorovna (a
short, fat woman who despite all efforts to the contrary had continued to
broaden steadily from her shoulders downwards and who had the same
extraordinarily arched eyebrows as the lady who had been standing by the
coffin), dressed all in black, her head covered with lace, came out of her own
room with some other ladies, conducted them to the room where the dead body lay,
and said: "The service will begin immediately. Please go in."
Schwartz, making an indefinite bow, stood still, evidently neither accepting
nor declining this invitation. Praskovya Fedorovna recognizing Peter Ivanovich,
sighed, went close up to him, took his hand, and said: "I know you were a true
friend to Ivan Ilych..." and looked at him awaiting some suitable response. And
Peter Ivanovich knew that, just as it had been the right thing to cross himself
in that room, so what he had to do here was to press her hand, sigh, and say,
"Believe me..." So he did all this and as he did it felt that the desired
result had been achieved: that both he and she were touched.
"Come with me. I want to speak to you before it begins," said the widow.
"Give me your arm."
Peter Ivanovich gave her his arm and they went to the inner rooms, passing
Schwartz who winked at Peter Ivanovich compassionately.
"That does for our bridge! Don's object if we find another player. Perhaps
you can cut in when you do escape," said his playful look.
Peter Ivanovich sighed still more deeply and despondently, and Praskovya
Fedorovna pressed his arm gratefully. When they reached the drawing-room,
upholstered in pink cretonne and lighted by a dim lamp, they sat down at the
table — she on a sofa and Peter Ivanovich on a low pouffe, the springs of which
yielded spasmodically under his weight. Praskovya Fedorovna had been on the
point of warning him to take another seat, but felt that such a warning was out
of keeping with her present condition and so changed her mind. As he sat down
on the pouffe Peter Ivanovich recalled how Ivan Ilych had arranged this room and
had consulted him regarding this pink cretonne with green leaves. The whole
room was full of furniture and knick-knacks, and on her way to the sofa the lace
of the widow's black shawl caught on the edge of the table. Peter Ivanovich
rose to detach it, and the springs of the pouffe, relieved of his weight, rose
also and gave him a push. The widow began detaching her shawl herself, and
Peter Ivanovich again sat down, suppressing the rebellious springs of the pouffe
under him. But the widow had not quite freed herself and Peter Ivanovich got up
again, and again the pouffe rebelled and even creaked. When this was all over
she took out a clean cambric handkerchief and began to weep. The episode with
the shawl and the struggle with the pouffe had cooled Peter Ivanovich's emotions
and he sat there with a sullen look on his face. This awkward situation was
interrupted by Sokolov, Ivan Ilych's butler, who came to report that the plot in
the cemetery that Praskovya Fedorovna had chosen would cost tow hundred rubles.
She stopped weeping and, looking at Peter Ivanovich with the air of a victim,
remarked in French that it was very hard for her. Peter Ivanovich made a silent
gesture signifying his full conviction that it must indeed be so.
"Please smoke," she said in a magnanimous yet crushed voice, and turned to
discuss with Sokolov the price of the plot for the grave.
Peter Ivanovich while lighting his cigarette heard her inquiring very
circumstantially into the prices of different plots in the cemetery and finally
decide which she would take. when that was done she gave instructions about
engaging the choir. Sokolov then left the room.
"I look after everything myself," she told Peter Ivanovich, shifting the
albums that lay on the table; and noticing that the table was endangered by his
cigarette-ash, she immediately passed him an ash-tray, saying as she did so: "I
consider it an affectation to say that my grief prevents my attending to
practical affairs. On the contrary, if anything can — I won't say console me,
but — distract me, it is seeing to everything concerning him." She again took
out her handkerchief as if preparing to cry, but suddenly, as if mastering her
feeling, she shook herself and began to speak calmly. "But there is something I
want to talk to you about."
Peter Ivanovich bowed, keeping control of the springs of the pouffe, which
immediately began quivering under him.
"He suffered terribly the last few days."
"Did he?" said Peter Ivanovich.
"Oh, terribly! He screamed unceasingly, not for minutes but for hours. for
the last three days he screamed incessantly. It was unendurable. I cannot
understand how I bore it; you could hear him three rooms off. Oh, what I have
suffered!"
"Is it possible that he was conscious all that time?" asked Peter
Ivanovich.
"Yes," she whispered. "To the last moment. He took leave of us a quarter of
an hour before he died, and asked us to take Volodya away."
The thought of the suffering of this man he had known so intimately, first as
a merry little boy, then as a schoolmate, and later as a grown-up colleague,
suddenly struck Peter Ivanovich with horror, despite an unpleasant consciousness
of his own and this woman's dissimulation. He again saw that brow, and that
nose pressing down on the lip, and felt afraid for himself.
"Three days of frightful suffering and the death! Why, that might suddenly,
at any time, happen to me," he thought, and for a moment felt terrified. But —
he did not himself know how — the customary reflection at once occurred to him
that this had happened to Ivan Ilych and not to him, and that it should not and
could not happen to him, and that to think that it could would be yielding to
depressing which he ought not to do, as Schwartz's expression plainly showed.
After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt reassured, and began to ask with
interest about the details of Ivan Ilych's death, as though death was an
accident natural to Ivan Ilych but certainly not to himself.
After many details of the really dreadful physical sufferings Ivan Ilych had
endured (which details he learnt only from the effect those sufferings had
produced on Praskovya Fedorovna's nerves) the widow apparently found it
necessary to get to business.
"Oh, Peter Ivanovich, how hard it is! How terribly, terribly hard!" and she
again began to weep.
Peter Ivanovich sighed and waited for her to finish blowing her nose. When
she had don so he said, "Believe me..." and she again began talking and brought
out what was evidently her chief concern with him — namely, to question him as
to how she could obtain a grant of money from the government on the occasion of
her husband's death. She made it appear that she was asking Peter Ivanovich's
advice about her pension, but he soon saw that she already knew about that to
the minutest detail, more even than he did himself. She knew how much could be
got out of the government in consequence of her husband's death, but wanted to
find out whether she could not possibly extract something more. Peter Ivanovich
tried to think of some means of doing so, but after reflecting for a while and,
out of propriety, condemning the government for its niggardliness, he said he
thought that nothing more could be got. Then she sighed and evidently began to
devise means of getting rid of her visitor. Noticing this, he put out his
cigarette, rose, pressed her hand, and went out into the anteroom.
In the dining-room where the clock stood that Ivan Ilych had liked so much
and had bought at an antique shop, Peter Ivanovich met a priest and a few
acquaintances who had come to attend the service, and he recognized Ivan Ilych's
daughter, a handsome young woman. She was in black and her slim figure appeared
slimmer than ever. She had a gloomy, determined, almost angry expression, and
bowed to Peter Ivanovich as though he were in some way to blame.
Behind her, with the same offended look, stood a wealthy young man, and
examining magistrate, whom Peter Ivanovich also knew and who was her fiance, as
he had heard. He bowed mournfully to them and was about to pass into the
death-chamber, when from under the stairs appeared the figure of Ivan Ilych's
schoolboy son, who was extremely like his father. He seemed a little Ivan Ilych,
such as Peter Ivanovich remembered when they studied law together. His
tear-stained eyes had in them the look that is seen in the eyes of boys of
thirteen or fourteen who are not pure-minded. When he saw Peter Ivanovich he
scowled morosely and shamefacedly. Peter Ivanovich nodded to him and entered
the death-chamber. The service began: candles, groans, incense, tears, and
sobs. Peter Ivanovich stood looking gloomily down at his feet. He did not look
once at the dead man, did not yield to any depressing influence, and was one of
the first to leave the room. There was no one in the anteroom, but Gerasim
darted out of the dead man's room, rummaged with his strong hands among the fur
coats to find Peter Ivanovich's and helped him on with it.
"Well, friend Gerasim," said Peter Ivanovich, so as to say something. "It's
a sad affair, isn't it?"
"It's God will. We shall all come to it some day," said Gerasim, displaying
his teeth — the even white teeth of a healthy peasant — and, like a man in the
thick of urgent work, he briskly opened the front door, called the coachman,
helped Peter Ivanovich into the sledge, and sprang back to the porch as if in
readiness for what he had to do next.
Peter Ivanovich found the fresh air particularly pleasant after the smell of
incense, the dead body, and carbolic acid.
"Where to sir?" asked the coachman.
"It's not too late even now....I'll call round on Fedor Vasilievich."
He accordingly drove there and found them just finishing the first rubber, so
that it was quite convenient for him to cut in.
Chapter
II
Ivan Ilych's
life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most
terrible.
He had been a member of the Court of Justice, and died at the age of
forty-five. His father had been an official who after serving in various
ministries and departments in Petersburg had made the sort of career which
brings men to positions from which by reason of their long service they cannot
be dismissed, though they are obviously unfit to hold any responsible position,
and for whom therefore posts are specially created, which though fictitious
carry salaries of from six to ten thousand rubles that are not fictitious, and
in receipt of which they live on to a great age.
Such was the Privy Councillor and superfluous member of various superfluous
institutions, Ilya Epimovich Golovin.
He had three sons, of whom Ivan Ilych was the second. The eldest son was
following in his father's footsteps only in another department, and was already
approaching that stage in the service at which a similar sinecure would be
reached. the third son was a failure. He had ruined his prospects in a number
of positions and was not serving in the railway department. His father and
brothers, and still more their wives, not merely disliked meeting him, but
avoided remembering his existence unless compelled to do so. His sister had
married Baron Greff, a Petersburg official of her father's type. Ivan Ilych was
*le phenix de la famille* as people said. He was neither as cold and formal as
his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them
— an intelligent polished, lively and agreeable man. He had studied with his
younger brother at the School of Law, but the latter had failed to complete the
course and was expelled when he was in the fifth class. Ivan Ilych finished the
course well. Even when he was at the School of Law he was just what he remained
for the rest of his life: a capable, cheerful, good-natured, and sociable man,
though strict in the fulfillment of what he considered to be his duty: and he
considered his duty to be what was so considered by those in authority. Neither
as a boy nor as a man was he a toady, but from early youth was by nature
attracted to people of high station as a fly is drawn to the light, assimilating
their ways and views of life and establishing friendly relations with them. All
the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him;
he succumbed to sensuality, to vanity, and latterly among the highest classes to
liberalism, but always within limits which his instinct unfailingly indicated to
him as correct.
At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and
made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw
that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not
regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to
forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.
Having graduated from the School of Law and qualified for the tenth rank of
the civil service, and having received money from his father for his equipment,
Ivan Ilych ordered himself clothes at Scharmer's, the fashionable tailor, hung a
medallion inscribed *respice finem* on his watch-chain, took leave of his
professor and the prince who was patron of the school, had a farewell dinner
with his comrades at Donon's first-class restaurant, and with his new and
fashionable portmanteau, linen, clothes, shaving and other toilet appliances,
and a travelling rug, all purchased at the best shops, he set off for one of the
provinces where through his father's influence, he had been attached to the
governor as an official for special service.
In the province Ivan Ilych soon arranged as easy and agreeable a position for
himself as he had had at the School of Law. He performed his official task,
made his career, and at the same time amused himself pleasantly and decorously.
Occasionally he paid official visits to country districts where he behaved with
dignity both to his superiors and inferiors, and performed the duties entrusted
to him, which related chiefly to the sectarians, with an exactness and
incorruptible honesty of which he could not but feel proud.
In official matters, despite his youth and taste for frivolous gaiety, he was
exceedingly reserved, punctilious, and even severe; but in society he was often
amusing and witty, and always good- natured, correct in his manner, and *bon
enfant*, as the governor and his wife — with whom he was like one of the family
— used to say of him.
In the province he had an affair with a lady who made advances to the elegant
young lawyer, and there was also a milliner; and there were carousals with
aides-de-camp who visited the district, and after-supper visits to a certain
outlying street of doubtful reputation; and there was too some obsequiousness to
his chief and even to his chief's wife, but all this was done with such a tone
of good breeding that no hard names could be applied to it. It all came under
the heading of the French saying: *"Il faut que jeunesse se passe."* It was
all done with clean hands, in clean linen, with French phrases, and above all
among people of the best society and consequently with the approval of people of
rank.
So Ivan Ilych served for five years and then came a change in his official
life. The new and reformed judicial institutions were introduced, and new men
were needed. Ivan Ilych became such a new man. He was offered the post of
examining magistrate, and he accepted it though the post was in another province
and obliged him to give up the connexions he had formed and to make new ones.
His friends met to give him a send-off; they had a group photograph taken and
presented him with a silver cigarette-case, and he set off to his new post.
As examining magistrate Ivan Ilych was just as *comme il faut* and decorous a
man, inspiring general respect and capable of separating his official duties
from his private life, as he had been when acting as an official on special
service. His duties now as examining magistrate were fare more interesting and
attractive than before. In his former position it had been pleasant to wear an
undress uniform made by Scharmer, and to pass through the crowd of petitioners
and officials who were timorously awaiting an audience with the governor, and
who envied him as with free and easy gait he went straight into his chief's
private room to have a cup of tea and a cigarette with him. But not many people
had then been directly dependent on him — only police officials and the
sectarians when he went on special missions — and he liked to treat them
politely, almost as comrades, as if he were letting them feel that he who had
the power to crush them was treating them in this simple, friendly way. There
were then but few such people.
But now, as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych felt that everyone without
exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power, and
that he need only write a few words on a sheet of paper with a certain heading,
and this or that important, self- satisfied person would be brought before him
in the role of an accused person or a witness, and if he didnot choose to allow
him to sit down, would have to stand before him and answer his questions. Ivan
Ilych never abused his power; he tried on the contrary to soften its expression,
but the consciousness of it and the possibility of softening its effect,
supplied the chief interest and attraction of his office. In his work itself,
especially in his examinations, he very soon acquired a method of eliminating
all considerations irrelevant to the legal aspect of the case, and reducing even
the most complicated case to a form in which it would be presented on paper only
in its externals, completely excluding his personal opinion of the matter, while
above all observing every prescribed formality. The work was new and Ivan Ilych
was one of the first men to apply the new Code of 1864.
On taking up the post of examining magistrate in a new town, he made new
acquaintances and connexions, placed himself on a new footing and assumed a
somewhat different tone. He took up an attitude of rather dignified aloofness
towards the provincial authorities, but picked out the best circle of legal
gentlemen and wealthy gentry living in the town and assumed a tone of slight
dissatisfaction with the government, of moderate liberalism, and of enlightened
citizenship. At the same time, without at all altering the elegance of his
toilet, he ceased shaving his chin and allowed his beard to grow as it
pleased.
Ivan Ilych settled down very pleasantly in this new town. The society there,
which inclined towards opposition to the governor was friendly, his salary was
larger, and he began to play *vint* [a form of bridge], which he found added not
a little to the pleasure of life, for he had a capacity for cards, played
good-humouredly, and calculated rapidly and astutely, so that he usually
won.
After living there for two years he met his future wife, Praskovya Fedorovna
Mikhel, who was the most attractive, clever, and brilliant girl of the set in
which he moved, and among other amusements and relaxations from his labours as
examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych established light and playful relations with
her.
While he had been an official on special service he had been accustomed to
dance, but now as an examining magistrate it was exceptional for him to do so.
If he danced now, he did it as if to show that though he served under the
reformed order of things, and had reached the fifth official rank, yet when it
came to dancing he could do it better than most people. So at the end of an
evening he sometimes danced with Praskovya Fedorovna, and it was chiefly during
these dances that he captivated her. She fell in love with him. Ivan Ilych had
at first no definite intention of marrying, but when the girl fell in love with
him he said to himself: "Really, why shouldn't I marry?"
Praskovya Fedorovna came of a good family, was not bad looking, and had some
little property. Ivan Ilych might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but
even this was good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal
income. She was well connected, and was a sweet, pretty, and thoroughly correct
young woman. to say that Ivan Ilych married because he fell in love with
Praskovya Fedorovna and found that she sympathized with his views of life would
be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved of
the match. He was swayed by both these considerations: the marriage gave him
personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by
the most highly placed of his associates.
So Ivan Ilych got married.
The preparations for marriage and the beginning of married life, with its
conjugal caresses, the new furniture, new crockery, and new linen, were very
pleasant until his wife became pregnant — so that Ivan Ilych had begun to think
that marriage would not impair the easy, agreeable, gay and always decorous
character of his life, approved of by society and regarded by himself as
natural, but would even improve it. But from the first months of his wife's
pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which
there was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself.
His wife, without any reason — *de gaiete de coeur* as Ivan Ilych expressed
it to himself — began to disturb the pleasure and propriety of their life. She
began to be jealous without any cause, expected him to devote his whole
attention to her, found fault with everything, and made coarse and ill-mannered
scenes.
At first Ivan Ilych hoped to escape from the unpleasantness of this state of
affairs by the same easy and decorous relation to life that had served him
heretofore: he tried to ignore his wife's disagreeable moods, continued to live
in his usual easy and pleasant way, invited friends to his house for a game of
cards, and also tried going out to his club or spending his evenings with
friends. But one day his wife began upbraiding him so vigorously, using such
coarse words, and continued to abuse him every time he did not fulfil her
demands, so resolutely and with such evident determination not to give way till
he submitted — that is, till he stayed at home and was bored just as she was —
that he became alarmed. He now realized that matrimony — at any rate with
Praskovya Fedorovna — was not always conducive to the pleasures and amenities of
life, but on the contrary often infringed both comfort and propriety, and that
he must therefore entrench himself against such infringement. And Ivan Ilych
began to seek for means of doing so. His official duties were the one thing
that imposed upon Praskovya Fedorovna, and by means of his official work and the
duties attached to it he began struggling with his wife to secure his own
independence.
With the birth of their child, the attempts to feed it and the various
failures in doing so, and with the real and imaginary illnesses of mother and
child, in which Ivan Ilych's sympathy was demanded but about which he understood
nothing, the need of securing for himself an existence outside his family life
became still more imperative.
As his wife grew more irritable and exacting and Ivan Ilych transferred the
center of gravity of his life more and more to his official work, so did he grow
to like his work better and became more ambitious than before.
Very soon, within a year of his wedding, Ivan Ilych had realized that
marriage, though it may add some comforts to life, is in fact a very intricate
and difficult affair towards which in order to perform one's duty, that is, to
lead a decorous life approved of by society, one must adopt a definite attitude
just as towards one's official duties.
And Ivan Ilych evolved such an attitude towards married life. He only
required of it those conveniences — dinner at home, housewife, and bed — which
it could give him, and above all that propriety of external forms required by
public opinion. For the rest he looked for lighthearted pleasure and propriety,
and was very thankful when he found them, but if he met with antagonism and
querulousness he at once retired into his separate fenced-off world of official
duties, where he found satisfaction.
Ivan Ilych was esteemed a good official, and after three years was made
Assistant Public Prosecutor. His new duties, their importance, the possibility
of indicting and imprisoning anyone he chose, the publicity his speeches
received, and the success he had in all these things, made his work still more
attractive.
More children came. His wife became more and more querulous and
ill-tempered, but the attitude Ivan Ilych had adopted towards his home life
rendered him almost impervious to her grumbling.
After seven years' service in that town he was transferred to another
province as Public Prosecutor. They moved, but were short of money and his wife
did not like the place they moved to. Though the salary was higher the cost of
living was greater, besides which two of their children died and family life
became still more unpleasant for him.
Praskovya Fedorovna blamed her husband for every inconvenience they
encountered in their new home. Most of the conversations between husband and
wife, especially as to the children's education, led to topics which recalled
former disputes, and these disputes were apt to flare up again at any moment.
There remained only those rare periods of amorousness which still came to them
at times but did not last long. These were islets at which they anchored for a
while and then again set out upon that ocean of veiled hostility which showed
itself in their aloofness from one another. This aloofness might have grieved
Ivan Ilych had he considered that it ought not to exist, but he now regarded the
position as normal, and even made it the goal at which he aimed in family life.
His aim was to free himself more and more from those unpleasantness and to give
them a semblance of harmlessness and propriety. He attained this by spending
less and less time with his family, and when obliged to be at home he tried to
safeguard his position by the presence of outsiders. The chief thing however
was that he had his official duties. The whole interest of his life now
centered in the official world and that interest absorbed him. The
consciousness of his power, being able to ruin anybody he wished to ruin, the
importance, even the external dignity of his entry into court, or meetings with
his subordinates, his success with superiors and inferiors, and above all his
masterly handling of cases, of which he was conscious — all this gave him
pleasure and filled his life, together with chats with his colleagues, dinners,
and bridge. So that on the whole Ivan Ilych's life continued to flow as he
considered it should do — pleasantly and properly.
So things continued for another seven years. His eldest daughter was already
sixteen, another child had died, and only one son was left, a schoolboy and a
subject of dissension. Ivan Ilych wanted to put him in the School of Law, but
to spite him Praskovya Fedorovna entered him at the High School. The daughter
had been educated at home and had turned out well: the boy did not learn badly
either.
II
Ivan Ilych's
life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most
terrible.
He had been a member of the Court of Justice, and died at the age of
forty-five. His father had been an official who after serving in various
ministries and departments in Petersburg had made the sort of career which
brings men to positions from which by reason of their long service they cannot
be dismissed, though they are obviously unfit to hold any responsible position,
and for whom therefore posts are specially created, which though fictitious
carry salaries of from six to ten thousand rubles that are not fictitious, and
in receipt of which they live on to a great age.
Such was the Privy Councillor and superfluous member of various superfluous
institutions, Ilya Epimovich Golovin.
He had three sons, of whom Ivan Ilych was the second. The eldest son was
following in his father's footsteps only in another department, and was already
approaching that stage in the service at which a similar sinecure would be
reached. the third son was a failure. He had ruined his prospects in a number
of positions and was not serving in the railway department. His father and
brothers, and still more their wives, not merely disliked meeting him, but
avoided remembering his existence unless compelled to do so. His sister had
married Baron Greff, a Petersburg official of her father's type. Ivan Ilych was
*le phenix de la famille* as people said. He was neither as cold and formal as
his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them
— an intelligent polished, lively and agreeable man. He had studied with his
younger brother at the School of Law, but the latter had failed to complete the
course and was expelled when he was in the fifth class. Ivan Ilych finished the
course well. Even when he was at the School of Law he was just what he remained
for the rest of his life: a capable, cheerful, good-natured, and sociable man,
though strict in the fulfillment of what he considered to be his duty: and he
considered his duty to be what was so considered by those in authority. Neither
as a boy nor as a man was he a toady, but from early youth was by nature
attracted to people of high station as a fly is drawn to the light, assimilating
their ways and views of life and establishing friendly relations with them. All
the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him;
he succumbed to sensuality, to vanity, and latterly among the highest classes to
liberalism, but always within limits which his instinct unfailingly indicated to
him as correct.
At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and
made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw
that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not
regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to
forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.
Having graduated from the School of Law and qualified for the tenth rank of
the civil service, and having received money from his father for his equipment,
Ivan Ilych ordered himself clothes at Scharmer's, the fashionable tailor, hung a
medallion inscribed *respice finem* on his watch-chain, took leave of his
professor and the prince who was patron of the school, had a farewell dinner
with his comrades at Donon's first-class restaurant, and with his new and
fashionable portmanteau, linen, clothes, shaving and other toilet appliances,
and a travelling rug, all purchased at the best shops, he set off for one of the
provinces where through his father's influence, he had been attached to the
governor as an official for special service.
In the province Ivan Ilych soon arranged as easy and agreeable a position for
himself as he had had at the School of Law. He performed his official task,
made his career, and at the same time amused himself pleasantly and decorously.
Occasionally he paid official visits to country districts where he behaved with
dignity both to his superiors and inferiors, and performed the duties entrusted
to him, which related chiefly to the sectarians, with an exactness and
incorruptible honesty of which he could not but feel proud.
In official matters, despite his youth and taste for frivolous gaiety, he was
exceedingly reserved, punctilious, and even severe; but in society he was often
amusing and witty, and always good- natured, correct in his manner, and *bon
enfant*, as the governor and his wife — with whom he was like one of the family
— used to say of him.
In the province he had an affair with a lady who made advances to the elegant
young lawyer, and there was also a milliner; and there were carousals with
aides-de-camp who visited the district, and after-supper visits to a certain
outlying street of doubtful reputation; and there was too some obsequiousness to
his chief and even to his chief's wife, but all this was done with such a tone
of good breeding that no hard names could be applied to it. It all came under
the heading of the French saying: *"Il faut que jeunesse se passe."* It was
all done with clean hands, in clean linen, with French phrases, and above all
among people of the best society and consequently with the approval of people of
rank.
So Ivan Ilych served for five years and then came a change in his official
life. The new and reformed judicial institutions were introduced, and new men
were needed. Ivan Ilych became such a new man. He was offered the post of
examining magistrate, and he accepted it though the post was in another province
and obliged him to give up the connexions he had formed and to make new ones.
His friends met to give him a send-off; they had a group photograph taken and
presented him with a silver cigarette-case, and he set off to his new post.
As examining magistrate Ivan Ilych was just as *comme il faut* and decorous a
man, inspiring general respect and capable of separating his official duties
from his private life, as he had been when acting as an official on special
service. His duties now as examining magistrate were fare more interesting and
attractive than before. In his former position it had been pleasant to wear an
undress uniform made by Scharmer, and to pass through the crowd of petitioners
and officials who were timorously awaiting an audience with the governor, and
who envied him as with free and easy gait he went straight into his chief's
private room to have a cup of tea and a cigarette with him. But not many people
had then been directly dependent on him — only police officials and the
sectarians when he went on special missions — and he liked to treat them
politely, almost as comrades, as if he were letting them feel that he who had
the power to crush them was treating them in this simple, friendly way. There
were then but few such people.
But now, as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych felt that everyone without
exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power, and
that he need only write a few words on a sheet of paper with a certain heading,
and this or that important, self- satisfied person would be brought before him
in the role of an accused person or a witness, and if he didnot choose to allow
him to sit down, would have to stand before him and answer his questions. Ivan
Ilych never abused his power; he tried on the contrary to soften its expression,
but the consciousness of it and the possibility of softening its effect,
supplied the chief interest and attraction of his office. In his work itself,
especially in his examinations, he very soon acquired a method of eliminating
all considerations irrelevant to the legal aspect of the case, and reducing even
the most complicated case to a form in which it would be presented on paper only
in its externals, completely excluding his personal opinion of the matter, while
above all observing every prescribed formality. The work was new and Ivan Ilych
was one of the first men to apply the new Code of 1864.
On taking up the post of examining magistrate in a new town, he made new
acquaintances and connexions, placed himself on a new footing and assumed a
somewhat different tone. He took up an attitude of rather dignified aloofness
towards the provincial authorities, but picked out the best circle of legal
gentlemen and wealthy gentry living in the town and assumed a tone of slight
dissatisfaction with the government, of moderate liberalism, and of enlightened
citizenship. At the same time, without at all altering the elegance of his
toilet, he ceased shaving his chin and allowed his beard to grow as it
pleased.
Ivan Ilych settled down very pleasantly in this new town. The society there,
which inclined towards opposition to the governor was friendly, his salary was
larger, and he began to play *vint* [a form of bridge], which he found added not
a little to the pleasure of life, for he had a capacity for cards, played
good-humouredly, and calculated rapidly and astutely, so that he usually
won.
After living there for two years he met his future wife, Praskovya Fedorovna
Mikhel, who was the most attractive, clever, and brilliant girl of the set in
which he moved, and among other amusements and relaxations from his labours as
examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych established light and playful relations with
her.
While he had been an official on special service he had been accustomed to
dance, but now as an examining magistrate it was exceptional for him to do so.
If he danced now, he did it as if to show that though he served under the
reformed order of things, and had reached the fifth official rank, yet when it
came to dancing he could do it better than most people. So at the end of an
evening he sometimes danced with Praskovya Fedorovna, and it was chiefly during
these dances that he captivated her. She fell in love with him. Ivan Ilych had
at first no definite intention of marrying, but when the girl fell in love with
him he said to himself: "Really, why shouldn't I marry?"
Praskovya Fedorovna came of a good family, was not bad looking, and had some
little property. Ivan Ilych might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but
even this was good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal
income. She was well connected, and was a sweet, pretty, and thoroughly correct
young woman. to say that Ivan Ilych married because he fell in love with
Praskovya Fedorovna and found that she sympathized with his views of life would
be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved of
the match. He was swayed by both these considerations: the marriage gave him
personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by
the most highly placed of his associates.
So Ivan Ilych got married.
The preparations for marriage and the beginning of married life, with its
conjugal caresses, the new furniture, new crockery, and new linen, were very
pleasant until his wife became pregnant — so that Ivan Ilych had begun to think
that marriage would not impair the easy, agreeable, gay and always decorous
character of his life, approved of by society and regarded by himself as
natural, but would even improve it. But from the first months of his wife's
pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which
there was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself.
His wife, without any reason — *de gaiete de coeur* as Ivan Ilych expressed
it to himself — began to disturb the pleasure and propriety of their life. She
began to be jealous without any cause, expected him to devote his whole
attention to her, found fault with everything, and made coarse and ill-mannered
scenes.
At first Ivan Ilych hoped to escape from the unpleasantness of this state of
affairs by the same easy and decorous relation to life that had served him
heretofore: he tried to ignore his wife's disagreeable moods, continued to live
in his usual easy and pleasant way, invited friends to his house for a game of
cards, and also tried going out to his club or spending his evenings with
friends. But one day his wife began upbraiding him so vigorously, using such
coarse words, and continued to abuse him every time he did not fulfil her
demands, so resolutely and with such evident determination not to give way till
he submitted — that is, till he stayed at home and was bored just as she was —
that he became alarmed. He now realized that matrimony — at any rate with
Praskovya Fedorovna — was not always conducive to the pleasures and amenities of
life, but on the contrary often infringed both comfort and propriety, and that
he must therefore entrench himself against such infringement. And Ivan Ilych
began to seek for means of doing so. His official duties were the one thing
that imposed upon Praskovya Fedorovna, and by means of his official work and the
duties attached to it he began struggling with his wife to secure his own
independence.
With the birth of their child, the attempts to feed it and the various
failures in doing so, and with the real and imaginary illnesses of mother and
child, in which Ivan Ilych's sympathy was demanded but about which he understood
nothing, the need of securing for himself an existence outside his family life
became still more imperative.
As his wife grew more irritable and exacting and Ivan Ilych transferred the
center of gravity of his life more and more to his official work, so did he grow
to like his work better and became more ambitious than before.
Very soon, within a year of his wedding, Ivan Ilych had realized that
marriage, though it may add some comforts to life, is in fact a very intricate
and difficult affair towards which in order to perform one's duty, that is, to
lead a decorous life approved of by society, one must adopt a definite attitude
just as towards one's official duties.
And Ivan Ilych evolved such an attitude towards married life. He only
required of it those conveniences — dinner at home, housewife, and bed — which
it could give him, and above all that propriety of external forms required by
public opinion. For the rest he looked for lighthearted pleasure and propriety,
and was very thankful when he found them, but if he met with antagonism and
querulousness he at once retired into his separate fenced-off world of official
duties, where he found satisfaction.
Ivan Ilych was esteemed a good official, and after three years was made
Assistant Public Prosecutor. His new duties, their importance, the possibility
of indicting and imprisoning anyone he chose, the publicity his speeches
received, and the success he had in all these things, made his work still more
attractive.
More children came. His wife became more and more querulous and
ill-tempered, but the attitude Ivan Ilych had adopted towards his home life
rendered him almost impervious to her grumbling.
After seven years' service in that town he was transferred to another
province as Public Prosecutor. They moved, but were short of money and his wife
did not like the place they moved to. Though the salary was higher the cost of
living was greater, besides which two of their children died and family life
became still more unpleasant for him.
Praskovya Fedorovna blamed her husband for every inconvenience they
encountered in their new home. Most of the conversations between husband and
wife, especially as to the children's education, led to topics which recalled
former disputes, and these disputes were apt to flare up again at any moment.
There remained only those rare periods of amorousness which still came to them
at times but did not last long. These were islets at which they anchored for a
while and then again set out upon that ocean of veiled hostility which showed
itself in their aloofness from one another. This aloofness might have grieved
Ivan Ilych had he considered that it ought not to exist, but he now regarded the
position as normal, and even made it the goal at which he aimed in family life.
His aim was to free himself more and more from those unpleasantness and to give
them a semblance of harmlessness and propriety. He attained this by spending
less and less time with his family, and when obliged to be at home he tried to
safeguard his position by the presence of outsiders. The chief thing however
was that he had his official duties. The whole interest of his life now
centered in the official world and that interest absorbed him. The
consciousness of his power, being able to ruin anybody he wished to ruin, the
importance, even the external dignity of his entry into court, or meetings with
his subordinates, his success with superiors and inferiors, and above all his
masterly handling of cases, of which he was conscious — all this gave him
pleasure and filled his life, together with chats with his colleagues, dinners,
and bridge. So that on the whole Ivan Ilych's life continued to flow as he
considered it should do — pleasantly and properly.
So things continued for another seven years. His eldest daughter was already
sixteen, another child had died, and only one son was left, a schoolboy and a
subject of dissension. Ivan Ilych wanted to put him in the School of Law, but
to spite him Praskovya Fedorovna entered him at the High School. The daughter
had been educated at home and had turned out well: the boy did not learn badly
either.