"Yes," she whispered, "to the very last moment. He took leave of us a quarter of an hour before his death, and even asked us to bring Voloda to him."
The thought of the sufferings of the man he had known so intimately, first of all as a merry child and schoolfellow, and afterwards, when he had grown up, as a colleague, despite the unpleasant consciousness of his hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of this woman, suddenly terrified Peter Ivanovich. Again he saw before him that forehead, and the nose pressing upon the upper lip, and he had a feeling of horror on his own account
"Three whole days of terrible suffering — and death. The same thing may befall me, suddenly, at any moment," he thought, and for an instant he had a sensation of horror. But immediately, he himself knew not how, there came to his assistance the usual reflection that this thing had happened to Ivan Il'ich and not to him; that it ought not, and could not, happen to him, and that, by giving way to the thought of it, he was only giving way to a gloomy tendency which he ought not to give way to, as Schwarz's face had plainly declared. And having made this reflection, Peter Ivanovich felt more comfortable, and began with interest to inquire about the particulars of the end of Ivan Il'ich, as if death was an accident to which only Ivan Il'ich was liable, but he himself was not.
After various discussions about the really terrible physical sufferings endured by Ivan Il'ich (Peter Ivanovich learnt these particulars simply because the torments of Ivan Il'ich were really upon the ner
