What tormented Iván Ilých most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and that he only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result. He however knew that do what they would nothing would come of it, only still more agonizing suffering and death. This deception tortured him – their not wishing to admit what they all knew and what he knew, but wanting to lie to him concerning his terrible condition, and wishing and forcing him to participate in that lie. Those lies – lies enacted over him on the eve of his death and destined to degrade this awful, solemn act to the level of their visitings, their curtains, their sturgeon for dinner – were a terrible agony for Iván Ilých. And strangely enough, many times when they were going through their antics over him he had been within a hairbreadth of calling out to them: ‘Stop lying! You know and I know that I am dying. Then at least stop lying about it!’ But he had never had the spirit to do it. The awful, terrible act of his dying was, he could see, reduced by those about him to the level of a casual, unpleasant, and almost indecorous incident (as if someone entered a drawing-room diffusing an unpleasant odour) and this was done by that very decorum which he had served all his life long. He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to grasp his position. Only Gerásim recognized it and pitied him. And so Iván Ilých felt at ease only with him. He felt comforted when Gerásim supported his legs (sometimes all night long) and refused to go to bed, saying: ‘Don’t you worry, Iván Ilých. I’ll get sleep enough later on,’ or when he suddenly became familiar and exclaimed: ‘If you weren’t sick it would be another matter, but as it is, why should I grudge a little trouble?’ Gerásim alone did not lie; everything showed that he alone understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them, but simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled master. Once when Iván Ilých was sending him away he even said straight out: ‘We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?’ – expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came.
Apart from this lying, or because of it, what most tormented Iván Ilých was that no one pitied him as he wished to be pitied. At certain moments after prolonged suffering he wished most of all (though he would have been ashamed to confess it) for someone to pity him as a sick child is pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted. He knew he was an important functionary, that he had a beard turning grey, and that therefore what he longed for was impossible, but still he longed for it. And in Gerásim’s attitude towards him there was something akin to what he wished for, and so that attitude comforted him. Iván Ilých wanted to weep, wanted to be petted and cried over, and then his colleague Shébek would come, and instead of weeping and being petted, Iván Ilých would assume a serious, severe, and profound air, and by force of habit would express his opinion on a decision of the Court of Cassation and would stubbornly insist on that view. This falsity around him and within him did more than anything else to poison his last days.
VIII
IT was morning. He knew it was morning because Gerásim had gone, and Peter the footman had come and put out the candles, drawn back one of the curtains, and begun quietly to tidy up. Whether it was morning or evening, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, it was all just the same: the gnawing, unmitigated, agonizing pain, never ceasing for an instant, the consciousness of life inexorably waning but not yet extinguished, the approach of that ever dreaded and hateful Death which was the only reality, and always the same falsity. What were days, weeks, hours, in such a case?
‘Will you have some tea, sir?’
‘He wants things to be regular, and wishes the gentlefolk to drink tea in the morning,’ thought Iván Ilých, and only said ‘No’.
‘Wouldn’t you like to move onto the sofa, sir?’
‘He wants to tidy up the room, and I’m in the way. I am uncleanliness and disorder,’ he thought, and said only:
‘No, leave me alone.’
The man went on bustling about. Iván Ilých stretched out his hand. Peter came up, ready to help.
‘What is it, sir?’
‘My watch.’
Peter took the watch which was close at hand and gave it to his master.
‘Half-past eight. Are they up?’
‘No sir, except Vladímir Ivánich’ (the son) ‘who has gone to school. Praskóvya Fëdorovna ordered me to wake her if you asked for her. Shall I do so?’
‘No, there’s no need to.’ ‘Perhaps I’d better have some tea,’ he thought, and added aloud: ‘Yes, bring me some tea.’
