The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Death of Iván Ílich/Chapter 5
V.
Thus passed a month, and two months. Before New Year his brother-in-law arrived in the city, and stopped at their house. Iván Ilích was at court. Praskóvya Fédorovna was out shopping. Upon entering his cabinet, Iván Ilích found there his brother-in-law, a healthy sanguine nian, who was himself unpacking his satchel. Upon hearing Iván Ilích's steps, he raised his head and for a second looked at him in silence. This glance disclosed everything to Iván Ilích. The brother-in-law opened his mouth to exclaim something in amazement, but held himself back. This motion confirmed everything.
"Well, have I changed?"
"Yes—there is a change."
And no matter how much Iván Ilích afterward led his brother-in-law up to talk about his appearance, his brother-in-law kept quiet about it. Praskóvya Fédorovna came home, and the brother-in-law went to see her. Iván Ilích locked the door and began to look at himself in the mirror, at first straight, and then from one side. He took the photograph of himself and his wife, and compared it with what he saw in the mirror. The change was tremendous. Then he bared his arms as high as the elbow; he looked at them, pulled down the sleeves, sat down on an ottoman, and grew darker than night.
"I must not, I must not," he said to himself. He went up to the table, picked up a law case, and began to read it, but was unable to do so. He opened the door and went into the parlour. The door to the drawing-room was closed. He went up to it on tiptoe, and began to listen.
"No, you exaggerate it," said Praskóvya Fédorovna.
"Exaggerate? No. You do not see it, he is a dead man,—look into his eyes. There is no light in them. What is the matter with him?”
"Nobody knows. Nikoláev" (that was the second doctor) "said something, but I do not know what. Leshchetítski" (that was the famous doctor) "said, on the contrary—"
Iván Ilích walked away and went to his room; he lay down and began to think: "The kidney, a floating kidney." He recalled everything which the doctors had told him about how it had torn itself away and was floating around. He tried with an effort of the imagination to catch this kidney, and to arrest and fasten it. So little was needed for that, he thought. "No, I will call on Peter Ivánovich before I do anything else." (This was that friend whose friend was a doctor.) He rang the bell, ordered the horse to be hitched up, and got himself ready to go."
"Whither are you going, Jean?" asked his wife, with a peculiarly sad and strangely kind expression.
This strangely kind expression made him furious. He cast a gloomy glance at her.
"I have some business with Peter Ivánovich."
He drove to the house of his friend, who had a friend who was a doctor. With him he drove to the doctor. He found him at home, and conversed with him for a long time.
By analyzing anatomically and physiologically the details of what, according to the doctor's opinion, was going on in him, he understood it all.
There was a thing, just a little thing, in his blind gut. All this might change for the better. Strengthen the energy of one organ, weaken the activity of another, there will take place a suction, and all will be well. He was a little too late for dinner. He dined and conversed merrily, but could not for a long time go back to his room to attend to his business. Finally he went to his cabinet, and immediately sat down to work. He read some cases and worked, but the consciousness of the fact that he had a reserved, important, confidential matter, with which he would busy himself after he was through, did not leave him. When he was through with work he recalled that this confidential matter was his thoughts about the blind gut. But he did not abandon himself to them: he went to the drawing-room for tea.
There were guests there, and they talked, and played the piano, and sang; there was also the investigating magistrate, his daughter's intended. Iván Ilích, according to Praskóvya Fédorovna's remark, passed a jollier evening than ever; but he did not for a moment forget the fact that he had some reserved, important thoughts about the blind gut.
At eleven o'clock he excused himself, and went to his room. Ever since the beginning of his disease he had slept by himself, in a small room near his cabinet. He went there, undressed himself, and took up a novel by Zola, but did not read it,—he was thinking. In his imagination took place the desired improvement in his blind gut. There was a suction and a secretion, and the regular activity was reestablished.
"Yes, that is all correct," he said to himself. "All one has to do is to come to Nature's aid."
He thought of his medicine. He raised himself up, took the medicine, and lay down on his back, watching the beneficial effect of the medicine and the destruction of his pain by it.
"Take it regularly and avoid deleterious influences, that is all; I am beginning to feel a little better, much better."
He began to feel his side, but it did not pain to the touch.
"Yes, I do not feel it,—really it is much better now."
He put out the light, and lay down on his side. The blind gut is improving, and being sucked in. Suddenly he experienced his old, dull, gnawing pain,—it was stubborn, calm, and serious. In the mouth was the same familiar, abominable taste. His heart was pinched, his head was dizzy.
"My God, my God!" he muttered, "again and again, and it will never stop."
Suddenly the matter presented itself to him from an entirely different side.
"The blind gut, the kidney!" he said to himself. "It is not a question of the blind gut, nor of the kidney, but of life and—death. Yes, there was life, and it is going away and away, and I cannot retain it. Yes. Why should I deceive myself? Is it not evident to all outside of me that I am dying? The question is only in the number of weeks and days—perhaps now. There was light, but now it is darkness. I was here until now, but now I am going thither! Whither?"
He was chilled, and his breath stopped. He heard only the beats of his heart.
"I shall be no longer, so what will there be? There will be nothing. But where shall I be, when I am no longer? Can it be death? No, I will not die."
He leaped up and wanted to light a candle; he groped about with trembling hands, dropped the candle with the candlestick on the floor, and again fell back on the pillow.
"What's the use? It makes no difference," he said to himself, looking with open eyes into the darkness. "Death, yes, death. And not one of them knows, or wants to know, and they have no pity. They are playing." (He was hearing beyond the door the peal of voices and of a ritornelle.) "It makes no difference to them, but they, too, will die. Foolishness! First I, and they after me; they will come to the same. And they are making merry. Beasts!"
Malice was choking him. He felt painfully and intolerably oppressed. It could not be that all should be fated to experience this terrible fear. He got up.
"Something is not quite right; I must calm myself, I must consider everything from the beginning."
And he began to consider.
"Yes, the beginning of the disease. I struck my side, and I was all the time the same, to-day and to-morrow,—I had a little pain, then more, then the doctors, then a gnawing pain, then despair, again the doctors; and I kept coming nearer and nearer to the abyss. There is less strength. Nearer and nearer. And I wore myself out,—I have no light in my eyes. And there is death, and I am thinking all the time of the blind gut. I am thinking of mending the gut, but this is death. Is it really death?"
Again he was assailed by terror: he breathed heavily, and bent over, trying to find a match, and pressed with his elbow against the foot-rest. The foot-rest was in his way and caused him pain, so he grew angry at it and in his anger pressed harder against it and threw it down. In his despair he lost his breath and threw himself down on his back, expecting death to come at once.
At this time the guests were departing. Praskóvya Fédorovna was seeing them off. She heard something fall, and entered the room.
"What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing. I dropped it accidentally."
She went out and brought a candle. He was lying down, breathing heavily and fast, like a man who had run a verst, and looked at her with an arrested glance.
"What is the matter with you, Jean?"
"Noth—ing. I—dropped—it."
"What is the use of telling her? She will not understand it," he thought. She did not understand it indeed. She lifted the foot-rest, lighted a candle for him, and hurried away. She had to see a guest off.
When she came back he was still lying on his back, looking at the ceiling.
"How are you? Are you feeling worse?"
"Yes."
She shook her head, and sat awhile.
"Do you know, Jean? I think it would be well to send for Leshchetítski."
This meant that she wanted to send for the famous doctor, and not to spare any expense. He smiled a sarcastic smile, and said, "No." She sat awhile, and then went up to him and kissed his brow.
He hated her with all the strength of his soul just as she was kissing him, and he made an effort over himself not to push her back.
"Good night. God will grant you to fall asleep."
"Yes."