The pain did not grow less, but Iván Ilých made efforts to force himself to think that he was better. And he could do this so long as nothing agitated him. But as soon as he had any unpleasantness with his wife, any lack of success in his official work, or held bad cards at bridge, he was at once acutely sensible of his disease. He had formerly borne such mischances, hoping soon to adjust what was wrong, to master it and attain success, or make a grand slam. But now every mischance upset him and plunged him into despair. He would say to himself: ‘There now, just as I was beginning to get better and the medicine had begun to take effect, comes this accursed misfortune, or unpleasantness …’ And he was furious with the mishap, or with the people who were causing the unpleasantness and killing him, for he felt that this fury was killing him but could not restrain it. One would have thought that it should have been clear to him that this exasperation with circumstances and people aggravated his illness, and that he ought therefore to ignore unpleasant occurrences. But he drew the very opposite conclusion: he said that he needed peace, and he watched for everything that might disturb it and became irritable at the slightest infringement of it. His condition was rendered worse by the fact that he read medical books and consulted doctors. The progress of his disease was so gradual that he could deceive himself when comparing one day with another – the difference was so slight. But when he consulted the doctors it seemed to him that he was getting worse, and even very rapidly. Yet despite this he was continually consulting them.
That month he went to see another celebrity, who told him almost the same as the first had done but put his questions rather differently, and the interview with this celebrity only increased Iván Ilých’s doubts and fears. A friend of a friend of his, a very good doctor, diagnosed his illness again quite differently from the others, and though he predicted recovery, his questions and suppositions bewildered Iván Ilých still more and increased his doubts. A homoeopathist diagnosed the disease in yet another way, and prescribed medicine which Iván Ilých took secretly for a week. But after a week, not feeling any improvement and having lost confidence both in the former doctor’s treatment and in this one’s, he became still more despondent. One day a lady acquaintance mentioned a cure effected by a wonderworking icon. Iván Ilých caught himself listening attentively and beginning to believe that it had occurred. This incident alarmed him. ‘Has my mind really weakened to such an extent?’ he asked himself. ‘Nonsense! It’s all rubbish. I mustn’t give way to nervous fears but having chosen a doctor must keep strictly to his treatment. That is what I will do. Now it’s all settled. I won’t think about it, but will follow the treatment seriously till summer, and then we shall see. From now there must be no more of this wavering!’ This was easy to say but impossible to carry out. The pain in his side oppressed him and seemed to grow worse and more incessant, while the taste in his mouth grew stranger and stranger. It seemed to him that his breath had a disgusting smell, and he was conscious of a loss of appetite and strength. There was no deceiving himself: something terrible, new, and more important than anything before in his life, was taking place within him of which he alone was aware. Those about him did not understand or would not understand it, but thought everything in the world was going on as usual. That tormented Iván Ilých more than anything. He saw that his household, especially his wife and daughter who were in a perfect whirl of visiting, did not understand anything of it and were annoyed that he was so depressed and so exacting, as if he were to blame for it. Though they tried to disguise it he saw that he was an obstacle in their path, and that his wife had adopted a definite line in regard to his illness and kept to it regardless of anything he said or did. Her attitude was this: ‘You know,’ she would say to her friends, ‘Iván Ilých can’t do as other people do, and keep to the treatment prescribed for him. One day he’ll take his drops and keep strictly to his diet and go to bed in good time, but the next day unless I watch him he’ll suddenly forget his medicine, eat sturgeon – which is forbidden – and sit up playing cards till one o’clock in the morning.’
‘Oh, come, when was that?’ Iván Ilých would ask in vexation. ‘Only once at Peter Ivánovich’s.’
‘And yesterday with Shébek.’
‘Well, even if I hadn’t stayed up, this pain would have kept me awake.’
‘Be that as it may you’ll never get well like that, but will always make us wretched.’
