et well, and then it would be all right. He knew very well that whatever they might do, nothing would come of it but still greater torments and death. And this lie tormented him; it tormented him that they would not recognise what they knew and what he knew to be a fact, but would lie to him about his terrible position, and wanted him to, and made him, participate in this lie.
Lies, lies, all these lies lied about him up to the very eve of his death; lies which were bound to degrade this terrible, solemn act of his death down to the level of all their visits, curtains, caviare for dinner—this was a terrible torment for Ivan Il'ich. And it was a strange thing that many a time, when they were fooling him like this, he was within a hair's-breadth of shrieking at them: "Enough of this falsehood. You know, and I know, that I am dying, so at any rate cease to lie about it." But he never had the heart to do this. The frightful, terrible act of his dying—he could see it plainly—was degraded by all who surrounded him to the level of a temporary unpleasantness, an indecency (of the same sort as how to avoid a man who on entering a drawing-room disseminates a bad odour), being so degraded by that same sense of "decency" to which he himself had been a slave all his life, he perceived that none pitied him because none even wanted to understand his condition. Only Gerasim understood that condition, and was sorry for him. And therefore it was only well with Ivan Il'ich when he was with Gerasim.
It was well with him when Gerasim,
