The Death of Ivan Ilych
By Leo Tolstoy
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
(Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author of novels, short stories, novellas, plays, and philosophical essays. He was born into an aristocratic family and served as an officer in the Russian military during the Crimean War before embarking on a career as a writer and activist. Tolstoy’s experience in war, combined with his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, led him to devote his life and work to the cause of pacifism. In addition to such fictional works as War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1877), and The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Tolstoy wrote The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), a philosophical treatise on nonviolent resistance which had a profound impact on Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. He is regarded today not only as one of the greatest writers of all time, but as a gifted and passionate political figure and public intellectual whose work transcends Russian history and literature alike.
Read more from Leo Tolstoy
A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death of Ivan Ilyich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confession Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War and Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories of All Time: Timeless Classics That Celebrate the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTolstoy's Stories for Children Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gospel in Brief: The Life of Jesus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What is Art? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wise Thoughts for Every Day: On God, Love, the Human Spirit, and Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master and Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War and Peace : Complete and Unabridged Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Big Book of Christmas Tales: 250+ Short Stories, Fairytales and Holiday Myths & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Death of Ivan Ilych (Complete Version, Best Navigation, Active TOC) (A to Z Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Beautiful Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Confession and Other Religious Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thoughtful Wisdom for Every Day: 365 Days of Love, Kindness, Healing, Faith, and Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel in Tolstoy: Selections from His Short Stories, Spiritual Writings & Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Death of Ivan Ilych
Related ebooks
Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The idiot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Brothers Karamazov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crime and Punishment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crime and Punishment: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War and Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Count Of Monte Cristo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Metamorphosis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoby-Dick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don Quixote Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Candide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crime and Punishment: With selected excerpts from the Notebooks for Crime and Punishment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Metamorphosis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Castle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Heart of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Gentle Creature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tale Of Two Cities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Notes From Underground and The Double Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War and Peace : Complete and Unabridged Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Notes from Underground Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Expectations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from the Underground Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Brothers Karamazov Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Insulted and Humiliated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anonymous Sex Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Death of Ivan Ilych
9 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5tolstoy is timeless: he can speak to any audience across time and space. these two stories are so impressive. i want to read anna karenina next...but maybe i'll go with more short stories first cuz it's kinda long. :-P
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5the literature is amazing, but the translation from Russian to English leaves a lot to be desired. I felt like I was missing a lot of details because of the translation issues, hence I had to supplement this by googling summaries and explanations of the title
Book preview
The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilych
(CMepTb HBaHa Rnbuna)
Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
I
During an interval in the Melvinski trial in the large building of the Law Courts the members and public prosecutor met in Ivan Egorovich Shebek’s private room, where the conversation turned on the celebrated Krasovski case. Fedor Vasilievich warmly maintained that it was not subject to their jurisdiction, Ivan Egorovich maintained the contrary, while Peter Ivanovich, not having entered into the discussion at the start, took no part in it but looked through the Gazette which had just been handed in.
Gentlemen,
he said, Ivan Ilych has died!
You don’t say so!
Here, read it yourself,
replied Peter Ivanovich, handing Fedor Vasilievich the paper still damp from the press. Surrounded by a black border were the words: Praskovya Fedorovna Golovina, with profound sorrow, informs relatives and friends of the demise of her beloved husband Ivan Ilych Golovin, Member of the Court of Justice, which occurred on February the 4th of this year 1882. the funeral will take place on Friday at one o’clock in the afternoon.
Ivan Ilych had been a colleague of the gentlemen present and was liked by them all. He had been ill for some weeks with an illness said to be incurable. His post had been kept open for him, but there had been conjectures that in case of his death Alexeev might receive his appointment, and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would succeed Alexeev. So on receiving the news of Ivan Ilych’s death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves or their acquaintances.
I shall be sure to get Shtabel’s place or Vinnikov’s,
thought Fedor Vasilievich. I was promised that long ago, and the promotion means an extra eight hundred rubles a year for me besides the allowance.
Now I must apply for my brother-inlaw’s transfer from Kaluga,
thought Peter Ivanovich. My wife will be very glad, and then she won’t be able to say that I never do anything for her relations.
I thought he would never leave his bed again,
said Peter Ivanovich aloud. It’s very sad.
But what really was the matter with him?
The doctors couldn’t say — at least they could, but each of them said something different. When last I saw him I thought he was getting better.
"And I haven’t been to see him since the holidays. I always meant to
go."
Had he any property?
I think his wife had a little — but something quiet trifling.
We shall have to go to see her, but they live so terribly far away.
Far away from you, you mean. Everything’s far away from your place.
You see, he never can forgive my living on the other side of the river,
said Peter Ivanovich, smiling at Shebek. Then, still talking of the distances between different parts of the city, they returned to the Court.
Besides considerations as to the possible transfers and promotions likely to result from Ivan Ilych’s death, the mere fact of the death of a near acquaintance aroused, as usual, in all who heard of it the complacent feeling that, it is he who is dead and not I.
Each one thought or felt, Well, he’s dead but I’m alive!
But the more intimate of Ivan Ilych’s acquaintances, his so-called friends, could not help thinking also that they would now have to fulfil the very tiresome demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of condolence to the widow.
Fedor Vasilievich and Peter Ivanovich had been his nearest acquaintances. Peter Ivanovich had studied law with Ivan Ilych and had considered himself to be under obligations to him.
Having told his wife at dinner-time of Ivan Ilych’s death, and of his conjecture that it might be possible to get her brother transferred to their circuit, Peter Ivanovich sacrificed his usual nap, put on his evening clothes and drove to Ivan Ilych’s house.
At the entrance stood a carriage and two cabs. Leaning against the wall in the hall downstairs near the cloakstand was a coffin-lid covered with cloth of gold, ornamented with gold cord and tassels, that had been polished up with metal powder. 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 on seeing Peter Ivanovich enter he stopped and winked at him, as if to say: Ivan Ilych has made a mess of things — not like you and me.
Schwartz’s face with his Piccadilly whiskers, and his slim figure in evening dress, had as usual an air of elegant solemnity which contrasted with the playfulness of his character and had a special piquancy here, or so it seemed to Peter Ivanovich.
Peter Ivanovich allowed the ladies to precede him and slowly followed them upstairs. Schwartz did not come down but remained where he was, and Peter Ivanovich understood that he wanted to arrange where they should play bridge that evening. The ladies went upstairs to the widow’s room, and Schwartz with seriously compressed lips but a playful look in his eyes, indicated by a twist of his eyebrows the room to the right where the body lay.
Peter Ivanovich, like everyone else on such occasions, entered feeling uncertain what he would have to do. All he knew was that at such times it is always safe to cross oneself. But he was not quite sure whether one should make obseisances while doing so. He therefore adopted a middle course. On entering the room he began crossing himself and made a slight movement resembling a bow. At the same time, as far as the motion of his head and arm allowed, he surveyed the room. Two young men — apparently nephews, one of whom was a high-school pupil — were leaving the room, crossing themselves as they did so. An old woman was standing motionless, and a lady with strangely arched eyebrows was saying something to her in a whisper. A vigorous, resolute Church Reader, in a frock-coat, was reading something in a loud voice with an expression that precluded any contradiction. The butler’s assistant, Gerasim, stepping lightly in front of Peter Ivanovich, was strewing something on the floor. Noticing this, Peter Ivanovich was immediately aware of a faint odour of a decomposing body.
The last time he had called on Ivan Ilych, Peter