[adapted]

by
Leo Tolstoy

Chapter 1

During a break in the Melvinski trial in the big Law Courts building, the judges and the public prosecutor met in Ivan Egorovich Shebek’s private room, where they began to talk about the famous Krasovski case. Fyodor Vasilyevich said firmly that it was not their case to judge, Ivan Egorovich said the opposite, while Peter Ivanovich, because he did not join the talk at the start, did not take part but looked through the Gazette newspaper that had just been brought in.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “Ivan Ilych has died!”
“Really?”
“Here, read it yourself,” said Peter Ivanovich, giving Fyodor Vasilyevich a newspaper still wet from the press.
The words were inside a black border:
‘Praskovya Fyodorovna Golovina, with deep sadness, tells relatives and friends about the death of her dear husband, Ivan Ilych Golovin, a judge, who died on February 4, 1882. The funeral will be on Friday at one o’clock in the afternoon.’

Ivan Ilych had been a co-worker of the men there and was liked by them all. He had been ill for some weeks with a sickness people said had no cure. His job was kept for him, but people guessed that if he died, Alexeev might get his job, and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would take Alexeev’s old place. So when they heard the news of Ivan Ilych’s death, the first thought of each man in that private room was about the changes and promotions it might bring to them or their friends.

‘I am sure I will get Shtabel’s job or Vinnikov’s,’ thought Fyodor Vasilyevich. ‘They promised me that a long time ago, and that will give me eight hundred more rubles a year, plus my allowance.’
‘Now I must ask for my brother-in-law to be moved from Kaluga,’ thought Peter Ivanovich. ‘My wife will be very happy, and then she cannot say that I never do anything for her family.’

“I thought he would never get out of bed again,” said Peter Ivanovich out loud. “It’s very sad.”
“But what was really wrong with him?”
“The doctors couldn’t say — or they could, but each one said something different. When I last saw him, I thought he was getting better.”
“And I haven’t been to see him since the holidays. I always meant to go.”

“Did he have any property?”
“I think his wife had a little — but very little.”
“We will have to go see her, but they live so very far away.”
“Far away from you, you mean. Everything’s far away from your place.”
“You see, he can never forgive me for living on the other side of the river,” said Peter Ivanovich, smiling at Shebek. Then, still talking about how far the different parts of the city were, they went back to the Court.

Besides thoughts about possible job changes and promotions that might come from Ivan Ilych’s death, the simple fact of the death of someone they knew made, as usual, everyone who heard it feel relieved: ‘he is the one who is dead, not me.’ Each one thought or felt, ‘Well, he’s dead but I’m alive!’ But the closer people who knew Ivan Ilych, his so-called friends, also could not help thinking that they would now have to follow the very boring rules of good manners by going to the funeral and visiting the widow to say they were sorry.

Fyodor Vasilyevich and Peter Ivanovich were the people he knew best. Peter Ivanovich had studied law with Ivan Ilych and felt he owed him. After telling his wife at dinner time about Ivan Ilych’s death, and his idea that her brother could be moved to their court, Peter Ivanovich gave up his usual nap, put on his evening clothes, and drove to Ivan Ilych’s house.

At the door stood a carriage and two cabs. Against the wall in the hall downstairs, near the coat stand, was a coffin lid covered with gold cloth, decorated with gold cord and tassels, rubbed with metal powder to make it shine. Two ladies in black were taking off their fur cloaks. Peter Ivanovich recognized one of them as Ivan Ilych’s sister, but the other was a stranger to him.

His colleague Schwartz was just coming downstairs, but when he saw Peter Ivanovich come in he stopped and winked at him, as if to say: “Ivan Ilyich has made a mess of things — not like you and me.”
Schwartz’s face with his neat whiskers, and his slim body in evening clothes, as usual looked elegant and serious. This was different from his playful character and seemed especially strong here, or so it seemed to Peter Ivanovich.

Peter Ivanovich let the ladies go before him and slowly followed them upstairs. Schwartz did not come down but stayed where he was, and Peter Ivanovich knew that he wanted to choose where they would play bridge that evening. The ladies went upstairs to the widow’s room, and Schwartz, with lips pressed tight but a playful look in his eyes, raised his eyebrows to show the room on the right where the body lay.

Peter Ivanovich, like everyone else at such times, came in not sure what he should do. All he knew was that at such times it is always safe to make the sign of the cross. But he was not sure if he should also bow while doing it. So he chose a middle way. When he went into the room he started to cross himself and made a small bow. At the same time, he looked around the room as much as his head and arm would let him. Two young men — probably nephews, one of them a high school student — were leaving the room, crossing themselves as they went.

An old woman was standing still, and a lady with strangely raised eyebrows was saying something to her in a whisper. A strong, serious Church Reader, in a long coat, was reading something in a loud voice with a look that said no one should argue. The butler’s helper, Gerasim, walking softly in front of Peter Ivanovich, was sprinkling something on the floor. Seeing this, Peter Ivanovich at once smelled a faint smell of a rotting body. The last time he had visited Ivan Ilych, Peter Ivanovich had seen Gerasim in the study. Ivan Ilych liked him very much and he was taking care of him like a nurse.

Peter Ivanovich kept crossing himself, bowing his head a little in a direction somewhere between the coffin, the Reader, and the holy pictures on the table in the corner of the room. After that, when he felt he had been crossing himself for too long, he stopped and began to look at the dead body.

The dead man lay, as dead men always do, in a very heavy way. His stiff arms and legs sank in the soft cushions of the coffin, and his head was forever bent on the pillow. His yellow, wax-like forehead, with bald spots over the hollow sides of his head, was pushed up in the way usual for the dead, and his nose stuck out and seemed to press on his upper lip. He was much changed and even thinner than when Peter Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as always with the dead, his face was better looking and, most of all, more serious and calm than when he was alive. The look on his face said that what had to be done was done, and done right. Also, in that look there was blame and a warning to the living. This warning seemed to Peter Ivanovich not right here, or at least not about him. He felt uncomfortable, so he quickly crossed himself again, turned, and went out of the door — too quickly and without enough respect, as he knew.

Schwartz was waiting for him in the next room with his legs wide apart and both hands playing with his top hat behind his back. Just seeing that playful, neat, and well-dressed man made Peter Ivanovich feel better. He felt that Schwartz was not troubled by this and would not give in to any sad feelings. His very look said that this church service for Ivan Ilych was not a good reason to change their usual routine. In other words, it would not stop him from opening a new pack of cards and shuffling them that evening while a servant put fresh candles on the table. In fact, there was no reason to think this would keep them from having a nice evening.

He said this in a whisper as Peter Ivanovich passed him, saying they could meet for a game at Fyodor Vasilyevich’s. But it seemed Peter Ivanovich was not going to play bridge that evening. Praskovya Fyodorovna (a short, fat woman who, although she tried not to, kept growing wider from her shoulders down, and who had the same very arched eyebrows as the lady who had been standing by the coffin) was dressed all in black, with lace on her head. She came out of her own room with some other ladies, led them to the room where the dead body was, and said: “The service will begin now. Please go in.”

Schwartz, making a small, unsure bow, stood still, clearly not saying yes or no to this invitation. Praskovya Fyodorovna, seeing Peter Ivanovich, sighed, went close to him, took his hand, and said: “I know you were a true friend to Ivan Ilych...” and looked at him, waiting for an answer. And Peter Ivanovich knew that, just as it was right to cross himself in that room, so here he should hold her hand, sigh, and say, “Believe me...” So he did all this, and as he did it he felt he got what he wanted: that both he and she were touched.

“Come with me. I want to talk to you before it starts,” said the widow. “Give me your arm.”
Peter Ivanovich gave her his arm and they went into the back rooms, passing Schwartz, who winked at Peter Ivanovich kindly.
“That ends our bridge! Don’t mind if we find another player. Maybe you can join in when you get away,” said his playful look.

Peter Ivanovich sighed even more deeply and sadly, and Praskovya Fyodorovna pressed his arm in thanks. When they reached the sitting room, with pink cloth and a dim lamp on, they sat down at the table — she on a sofa and Peter Ivanovich on a low seat, whose springs moved suddenly under his weight. Praskovya Fyodorovna was about to tell him to sit somewhere else, but felt that such words were not right for her now and so changed her mind. As he sat down on the low seat Peter Ivanovich remembered how Ivan Ilych had set up this room and had asked his advice about this pink cloth with green leaves.

The whole room was full of furniture and small decorations, and on her way to the sofa the lace of the widow’s black shawl got caught on the edge of the table. Peter Ivanovich stood up to free it, and the springs of the soft stool, without his weight, jumped up and pushed him. The widow began to free her shawl herself, and Peter Ivanovich sat down again, holding down the jumping springs of the soft stool under him.

But the widow had not quite got free and Peter Ivanovich got up again, and again the low seat shook and even creaked. When this was over she took out a clean thin handkerchief and began to cry. The trouble with the shawl and the fight with the seat had cooled Peter Ivanovich’s feelings and he sat there with an unhappy look on his face. This difficult moment was stopped by Sokolov, Ivan Ilych’s servant, who came to say that the place in the cemetery that Praskovya Fyodorovna had chosen would cost two hundred rubles. She stopped crying and, looking at Peter Ivanovich like someone hurt, said in French that it was very hard for her. Peter Ivanovich made a silent sign with his hand to show he was sure that it was true.

“Please smoke,” she said in a kind but very sad voice, and turned to talk with Sokolov about the price of the place for the grave. Peter Ivanovich, while lighting his cigarette, heard her ask many questions about the prices of different places in the graveyard and finally decide which one she would take. When that was done she told Sokolov to hire the choir. Sokolov then left the room.

“I look after everything myself,” she told Peter Ivanovich, moving the albums on the table. And when she saw his cigarette ash might fall on them, she quickly gave him an ashtray, saying: “I think it is only a show to say that my sadness keeps me from doing practical things. But, in fact, if anything can — I won’t say comfort me, but distract me — it is taking care of everything about him.” She again took out a little cloth as if ready to cry, but suddenly, as if controlling her feelings, she straightened up and began to speak calmly. “But there is something I want to talk to you about.”

Peter Ivanovich bowed, holding down the springs of the soft stool, which at once began shaking under him.
“He suffered terribly the last few days.”
“Did he?” said Peter Ivanovich.
“Oh, terribly! He screamed without stopping, not for minutes but for hours. For the last three days he screamed without stopping. It was unbearable. I cannot understand how I stood it; you could hear him three rooms away. Oh, what I have suffered!”
“Was he awake all that time?” asked Peter Ivanovich.
“Yes,” she whispered. “To the last moment. He said goodbye to us fifteen minutes before he died, and asked us to take Volodya away.”

The thought of this man’s pain, a man he had known very well, first as a happy little boy, then as a schoolmate, and later as an adult coworker, made Peter Ivanovich feel sudden fear, even though he knew, and did not like, that he and this woman were pretending. He again saw that forehead, and that nose pressing on the lip, and felt afraid for himself.

‘Three days of terrible pain, and then death! That might happen to me at any time,’ he thought, and for a moment he felt very scared. But—he did not know how—his usual thought came to him at once: this had happened to Ivan Ilych and not to him, and it should not and could not happen to him, and to think it could was to give in to sadness, which he should not do, as Schwartz’s face clearly showed. After this thought Peter Ivanovich felt calm again, and began to ask with interest about the details of Ivan Ilych’s death, as if death was something natural for Ivan Ilych but surely not for himself.

After many details of the terrible pains in his body that Ivan Ilych had suffered (which he knew only from how those pains had upset Praskovya Fyodorovna), the widow seemed to think it was time to talk about business.
“Oh, Peter Ivanovich, how hard it is! How very, very hard!” and she began to cry again.
Peter Ivanovich sighed and waited for her to finish blowing her nose.

When she had done so he said, “Believe me…” and she again began talking and brought out what was clearly her main point with him — that is, to ask him how she could get money from the government because of her husband’s death. She made it seem that she was asking Peter Ivanovich for advice about her pension money, but he soon saw that she already knew it in every detail, even more than he did. She knew how much could be got from the government because of her husband’s death, but wanted to see if she could get something more. Peter Ivanovich tried to think of a way to do this, but after thinking for a while and, to be polite, blaming the government for not giving enough, he said he thought nothing more could be got. Then she sighed and clearly began to think how to send her visitor away. Seeing this, he put out his cigarette, stood up, pressed her hand, and went out into the hall.

In the dining room with the clock that Ivan Ilych liked very much and bought at a shop for old things, Peter Ivanovich met a priest and some people he knew who had come for the service, and he saw Ivan Ilych’s daughter, a pretty young woman. She was in black and her thin body looked even thinner than before. She looked sad, serious, almost angry, and bowed to Peter Ivanovich as if he were somehow to blame.

Behind her, with the same hurt look, stood a rich young man, a court official, whom Peter Ivanovich also knew and who was her future husband, as he had heard. He bowed sadly to them and was about to go into the room where the dead man lay, when from under the stairs came Ivan Ilych’s schoolboy son, who looked very much like his father. He seemed like a little Ivan Ilych, as Peter Ivanovich remembered him when they studied law together. His eyes were wet with tears and had the look often seen in boys of thirteen or fourteen who are not innocent. When he saw Peter Ivanovich he frowned, sad and ashamed. Peter Ivanovich nodded to him and went into the room where the dead man lay.

The service began: candles, moans, sweet smoke, tears, and crying. Peter Ivanovich stood looking sadly down at his feet. He did not look once at the dead man, did not give in to the sad feeling, and was one of the first to leave the room. There was no one in the hall, but Gerasim ran out quickly from the dead man’s room, searched with his strong hands among the fur coats to find Peter Ivanovich’s and helped him put it on.
“Well, friend Gerasim,” said Peter Ivanovich, just to say something. “It’s a sad thing, isn’t it?”
“It is God’s will. We will all come to it one day,” said Gerasim, showing his even white teeth — the teeth of a healthy peasant — and, like a man busy with urgent work, he quickly opened the front door, called the coachman, helped Peter Ivanovich into the sled, and jumped back to the porch, ready for what he had to do next.

Peter Ivanovich found the fresh air very nice after the smell of incense smoke, the dead body, and disinfectant.
“Where to, sir?” asked the driver.
“It is not too late yet... I will visit Fyodor Vasilyevich.”
So he drove there and found them just finishing the first game, so it was a good time for him to join.

Chapter 2

Ivan Ilych’s life had been very simple and very ordinary and so terrible.

He had been a member of the court, and died at 45. His father had been a government worker. After working in many government offices in Petersburg, he made the kind of career that gives men jobs where, because of long service, they cannot be fired, even if they are clearly not fit to hold any responsible job. So special jobs are made for them. These jobs are not real, but they still pay six to ten thousand rubles in real money, and with this pay they live to a very old age.

Such was the high official and useless member of several useless institutions, Ilya Ephimovich Golovin. He had three sons. Ivan Ilych was the second. The eldest son was following his father’s path, but in another department, and was already close to getting the same kind of easy job with little work. The third son was a failure. He had spoiled his chances in several jobs and was now working in the railway department. His father and brothers, and even more their wives, not only disliked meeting him, but tried not to think about him unless they had to. His sister had married Baron Greff, a Petersburg official like her father.

Ivan Ilych was the best in the family, as people said. He was neither as cold and serious as his older brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy middle between them — a smart, polite, lively, and nice man. He had studied with his younger brother at the School of Law, but the younger brother did not finish the course and was expelled in the fifth year. Ivan Ilych finished the course well. Even at the School of Law he was the same as he was for the rest of his life: an able, cheerful, kind, and friendly man, though strict about doing what he thought was his duty; and he thought his duty was whatever the people in charge said it was.

Neither as a boy nor as a man did he try to please important people just to get something, but from early youth he naturally liked to be with important people, like a fly to light, copying their ways and ideas about life and making friends with them. All the excitements of childhood and youth passed and did not change him much; he gave in to pleasure, to pride, and later, among rich people, to liberal ideas, but always within limits that his own feeling always told him were right. At school he had done things that before seemed to him very bad and made him feel bad about himself when he did them; but later, when he saw that important people did such things and did not think they were wrong, he could not quite call them right, but he could forget them completely or remember them without any worry.

After he finished the School of Law and got the tenth rank in the civil service, and after his father gave him money for his things, Ivan Ilych ordered clothes at Scharmer’s, a fashionable tailor. He put a medallion with the words respice finem (meaning “think of the end”) on his watch chain, said goodbye to his professor and to the prince who supported the school, and had a farewell dinner with his friends at Donon’s first-class restaurant. With his new and stylish suitcase, shirts, clothes, shaving things and other washing things, and a travel rug, all bought at the best shops, he set off for one of the provinces, where, thanks to his father’s influence, he was attached to the governor as an official for special service.

In the province Ivan Ilych soon got a job that was as easy and pleasant as the one he had at the School of Law. He did his official work, did well at his job, and at the same time enjoyed himself in a pleasant and proper way. Sometimes he went on official visits to country areas. There he behaved with respect toward both his bosses and the people below him. He did the duties given to him, which were mostly about people in religious groups, with great care and complete honesty, and he felt proud of this.

At work, though he was young and liked light fun, he was very reserved, careful about rules, and even strict; but with other people he was often funny and quick with jokes, and always kind, polite, and bon enfant, as the governor and his wife — who treated him like one of the family — used to say of him. In the province he had a love affair with a lady who first showed she liked the well-dressed young lawyer, and there was also a hat-maker; and there were drinking parties with army officers who visited the area, and after-supper visits to a certain far-off street with a bad name; and there was also too much politeness to his chief and even to his chief’s wife, but all this was done in such a polite way that no hard names could be used for it. It all fit the French saying: “Il faut que jeunesse se passe.” It was all done with clean hands, in clean clothes, with French words, and above all among people of high society, and so people of high rank approved.

So Ivan Ilych worked for five years, and then there was a change in his job. The courts were changed and set up in a new way, and new people were needed. Ivan Ilych was one of these new people. He was offered the job of an investigating judge, and he accepted it, even though it was in another province and he had to leave the friends he had made and make new ones. His friends met to say goodbye; they took a group photo, gave him a silver cigarette case, and he left for his new job.

As an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych was just as proper and polite a man, making people respect him and able to keep his work and private life separate, as he had been when he worked on special service. His work now as an examining magistrate was much more interesting and pleasant than before. In his former job it was pleasant to wear an everyday uniform made by Scharmer. He would walk past the crowd of people asking for help and the officials who were waiting nervously for a meeting with the governor, and they were jealous of him as, with a calm, easy walk, he went straight into his chief’s private room to have a cup of tea and a cigarette with him. But not many people then depended on him directly — only police officers and people from sects when he went on special missions — and he liked to treat them politely, almost like friends, as if to let them feel that he had the power to punish them but chose to treat them in this simple, friendly way. There were only a few such people then.

But now, as a judge, Ivan Ilych felt that everyone, even the most important and proud, was under his power. He needed only to write a few words on a sheet of paper with an official heading, and that important, proud person would be brought before him as an accused person or a witness. And if he did not let him sit down, the person would have to stand before him and answer his questions. Ivan Ilych never abused his power; he tried, on the contrary, to use it gently, but knowing he had it, and that he could be gentle with it, gave the main interest and pleasure of his job. In his work itself, especially when he questioned people, he very soon learned a way to leave out all things not important to the legal side of the case, and to make even the most difficult case simple on paper, showing only the outside facts. He left out his personal opinion, and above all he kept every required rule. The work was new, and Ivan Ilych was one of the first men to use the new Code of 1864.

When he took the job of judge in a new town, he made new friends, started in a new way, and behaved a little differently. He kept a polite distance from the local officials, but chose the best group of lawyers and rich people in the town, and spoke with slight dissatisfaction about the government, with fairly liberal views, and like an educated citizen. At the same time, without changing his fine clothes, he stopped shaving his chin and let his beard grow freely. Ivan Ilych settled down very pleasantly in this new town. The people there, who tended to oppose the governor, were friendly, and his pay was higher. He began to play vint (a Russian card game, like bridge or whist), which he found made life much more pleasant, because he was good at cards. He played cheerfully and counted quickly and cleverly, so he usually won.

After living there for two years he met his future wife, Praskovya Fyodorovna Mikhel, who was the prettiest, smartest, and most lively girl in the group he spent time with, and besides other fun and rest from his work as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych started a light and playful friendship with her. While he had been an official on special service he used to dance, but now as an examining magistrate he did it only rarely. If he danced now, it was to show that, even under the new rules and with the fifth official rank, he could dance better than most people. So at the end of an evening he sometimes danced with Praskovya Fyodorovna, and it was mostly during these dances that he charmed her. She fell in love with him. Ivan Ilych at first had no clear plan to marry, but when the girl fell in love with him he said to himself: ‘Really, why shouldn’t I marry?’

Praskovya Fyodorovna came from a good family, was good-looking, and had a little property. Ivan Ilych might have hoped to marry someone richer or more important, but this was still good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have the same income. She knew important people, and was a sweet, pretty, and very proper young woman. To say that Ivan Ilych married because he fell in love with Praskovya Fyodorovna and found that she shared his views of life would be as wrong as to say that he married because the people around him approved of the marriage. He was moved by both these reasons: the marriage gave him personal pleasure, and at the same time it was thought the right thing by the most important people he knew.

So Ivan Ilych got married. The preparations for marriage and the beginning of married life, with their kisses, the new furniture, new dishes, and new sheets, were very pleasant until his wife became pregnant — so that Ivan Ilych had begun to think that marriage would not spoil the easy, pleasant, cheerful, and always proper character of his life, approved by society and which he saw as natural, but would even make it better. But from the first months of his wife’s pregnancy, something new suddenly appeared. It was unpleasant, sad, and not proper, and there was no way to escape it.

His wife, without any reason — just for fun, as Ivan Ilych said to himself — began to spoil the pleasure and peace of their life. She began to be jealous for no reason, expected him to give all his attention to her, complained about everything, and made rude scenes.

At first Ivan Ilych hoped to avoid the unpleasant situation by living in the same easy and proper way as before: he tried to ignore his wife’s bad moods, continued to live in his usual easy and pleasant way, invited friends to his house for a game of cards, and also went out to his club or spent his evenings with friends. But one day his wife began scolding him very strongly, using rude words, and kept insulting him every time he did not do what she wanted, so firmly and so clearly decided not to give in until he obeyed (that is, until he stayed at home and was bored like she was) that he became afraid.

He now saw that marriage — at least with Praskovya Fyodorovna — did not always bring the pleasures and comforts of life. Instead, it often spoiled both comfort and what was proper, so he had to protect himself against this. And Ivan Ilych began to look for ways to do so. His official duties were the one thing that Praskovya Fyodorovna respected, and by using his official work and the duties tied to it he began to stand up to his wife to keep his own freedom.

After their child was born, they tried to feed the baby, and they often failed. The mother and the child had both real and imagined illnesses. They asked Ivan Ilych for help and care, but he did not understand these things. So he felt an even stronger need to make a life for himself outside his family.