The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Death of Iván Ílich/Chapter 6
VI.
Iván Ilích saw that he was dying, but he was not only not used to this, but simply did not understand and was absolutely unable to understand it.
That example of a syllogism which he had learned from Kiesewetter's logic, "Caius is a man, men are mortal, consequently Caius is mortal," had all his life seemed true to him only in regard to Caius, but by no means to him. That was Caius the man, man in general, and that was quite true; but he was not Caius, and not man in general; he had always been an entirely, entirely different being from all the rest; he had been Ványa with his mother, with his father, Mítya, and Volódya; with his toys, the coachman, and the nurse; then with Kátenka, with all the joys, sorrows, and delights of childhood, boyhood, youth. Had there ever existed for Caius that odour of the striped leather ball, which Ványa had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother's hand in the same way, and had the silk of the folds of his mother's dress rustled in the same way for Caius? Had he been as riotous about patties at the Law School? Had Caius been in love like him? Had Caius been able to conduct a session like him?
"Caius is indeed mortal, and it is proper for him to die, but for me, Ványa, Iván Ilích, with all my feelings and thoughts, for me it is an entirely different matter. It cannot be proper for me to die. That would be too terrible."
That was the way he felt about it.
"If I were to die like Caius, I should know it, and an inner voice would tell me so, but nothing similar has been the case with me, and I and all my friends understood that it is not all the same as with Caius. But now it is like this!" he said to himself. "It is impossible! It cannot be, but it is so. How is this? How is this to be comprehended?"
And he was unable to understand, and tried to dispel this thought as being false, irregular, and morbid, and to substitute for it other, regular, healthy thoughts. But this thought,—not merely thought, but, as it were, reality,—came back and stood before him.
And he invoked in the place of this thought other thoughts in rotation, in the hope of finding a support in them. He tried to return to former trains of thought, which heretofore had veiled the thought of death from him. But, strange to say, what formerly had veiled, concealed, and destroyed the consciousness of death, now could no longer produce this effect. Of late Iván Ilích passed the greater part of his time in these endeavours to reëstablish his former trains of feeling, which had veiled death from him.
He said to himself, "I will busy myself with my service, for have I not lived by it heretofore?" and he went to court, dispelling all doubts from himself; he entered into conversations with his associates, and seated himself in his customary manner, casting a distracted, pensive glance upon the crowd, and leaning with both his emaciated hands on the rests of the oak chair, leaning over to an associate, as on former occasions, moving up the case, and whispering, and then, suddenly casting an upward glance and seating himself straight, he pronounced the customary words and began the case. But suddenly, in the middle, the pain in his side, paying no attention to the period of the development of the case, began its own gnawing work. Iván Ilích listened to it and dispelled the thought of it, but it continued its work and came and stationed itself right in front of him and looked at him, and he was dazed, and the fire went out in his eyes, and he began to ask himself again, "Is it possible it alone is true?" And his associates and his men under him saw in surprise and sorrow that he, such a brilliant and shrewd judge, was getting mixed and making blunders. He shook himself, tried to come back to his senses, and somehow managed to bring the session to a close, and returned home with the sad consciousness that his judicial work could not, as it had done of old, conceal from him what he wished to be concealed, and that by means of his judicial work he could not be freed from it. And, what was worst of all, was this, that it drew him toward itself, not that he might be able to do something, but only that he might look at it, straight into its eyes,—that he might look at it and, without doing anything, might suffer unutterably.
And, while trying to escape this state, Iván Ilích sought consolation and other shields, and the other shields appeared and for a short time seemed to save him, but very soon they were again, not destroyed, but made transparent, as though it penetrated through everything, and nothing could shroud it.
During this last period he entered the drawing-room which he himself had furnished,—that drawing-room where he had fallen, for which he,—as he thought with sarcasm and ridicule,—for the arrangement of which he had sacrificed his life, for he knew that his disease had begun with that hurt; he entered and saw that there was a nick in the table. He looked for the cause of it, and found it in the bronze adornment of the album which was bent at the edge. He took the album, an expensive one,—he had made it himself with love,—and was annoyed at the carelessness of his daughter and her friends,—here there was a tear, and there the photographs were turned bottom side up. He brought it all carefully back into shape and bent the adornment back again.
Then occurred to him the thought of transplanting all this établissement with the albums to another corner, near the flowers. He called up a lackey; either his daughter or his wife came to his rescue: they did not agree and contradicted him,—he quarrelled and grew angry; but everything was good, for he did not think of it,—it was not to be seen.
But just then his wife said, as he moved the things, "Let the servants do it, you will only hurt yourself," and suddenly it flashed above the screen, and he saw it. It flashed by, and he still hopes that it will pass, but he involuntarily listens to one side,—it is still seated there and still causing him the same gnawing pain, and he can no longer forget, and it looks at him quite clearly from behind the flowers. What is this all for?
"And it is true that I lost my life on this curtain, as though in the storming of a fortress. Is it really so? How terrible and how stupid! It cannot be! It cannot be, but it is so."
He went into his cabinet, and lay down there, and was again left all alone with it,—face to face with it,—and there was nothing he could do with it. All he had to do was to look at it and grow cold.