‘Oh, Peter Ivánovich, how hard it is! How terribly, terribly hard!’ and she again began to weep.
Peter Ivánovich sighed and waited for her to finish blowing her nose. When she had done 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 Ivánovich’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 Ivánovich 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 ante-room.
In the dining-room where the clock stood that Iván Ilých had liked so much and had bought at an antique shop, Peter Ivánovich met a priest and a few acquaintances who had come to attend the service, and he recognized Iván Ilých’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 Ivánovich as though he were in some way to blame. Behind her, with the same offended look, stood a wealthy young man, an examining magistrate, whom Peter Ivánovich also knew and who was her fiancé, 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 Iván Ilých’s schoolboy son, who was extremely like his father. He seemed a little Iván Ilých, such as Peter Ivánovich 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 Ivánovich he scowled morosely and shamefacedly. Peter Ivánovich nodded to him and entered the death-chamber. The service began: candles, groans, incense, tears, and sobs. Peter Ivánovich 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 ante-room, but Gerásim darted out of the dead man’s room, rummaged with his strong hands among the fur coats to find Peter Ivánovich’s and helped him on with it.
‘Well, friend Gerásim,’ said Peter Ivánovich, so as to say something. ‘It’s a sad affair, isn’t it?’
‘It’s God’s will. We shall all come to it some day,’ said Gerásim, 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 Ivánovich into the sledge, and sprang back to the porch as if in readiness for what he had to do next.
Peter Ivánovich 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 Fëdor Vasílievich.’
He accordingly drove there and found them just finishing the first rubber, so that it was quite convenient for him to cut in.
II
IVÁN Ilých’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, Ilyá Epímovich Golovín.
