# The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Death of Iván Ílich/Chapter 2

II.
Iván Ilích's past life was simple and most common, and yet most terrible.
Iván Ilích died at the age of forty-five years, as a member of the court of justice. He was the son of an official who had in various ministries and departments of St. Petersburg made that career which brings people to that state from which, though it becomes evident to them that they are no good for the performance of any essential duty, they none the less cannot be expelled, both on account of their long past service and their ranks, and so receive imaginary, fictitious places, and non-fictitious thousands, from six to ten, with which they live to a good old age.
Such had been the privy councillor, the useless member of all kinds of useless establishments, Ilyá Efímovich Golovín.
He had three sons: Iván Ilích was his second; the eldest had made a similar career to that of his father, only in a different ministry, and was rapidly approaching that official age when one attains that inertia of salary. The third son was a failure. He had continuously ruined himself in various places, and was now serving with the railways, and his father and his brothers, but especially their wives, not only disliked meeting him, but without some extreme need did not even mention his existence. His sister was married to Baron Gref, a St. Petersburg official like his father-in-law.
Iván Ilích was "le phénix de la famille," as they said. He was not as cold and as precise as the elder, and not ​as desperate as the younger. He was intermediate between them,—a clever, lively, agreeable, and decent man. He attended the department of law together with his younger brother. The younger brother did not graduate, and was expelled in his fifth year, while Iván Ilích graduated high in his class. Even while studying law he was what he was later, during his whole life,—a capable, jolly, and affable man, who none the less strictly carried out what he considered to be his duty; and he considered his duty that which was so considered by men in the higher spheres. Neither as a boy nor as a grown man did he curry favour with any one, but from his earliest youth he tended, like a fly to the light, to men who occupied the highest positions in the world, adopted their manner and their views of life, and established friendly relations with them. All the distractions of childhood and youth had passed for him without leaving any great traces; he abandoned himself to sensuality and ambition, and toward the end to the liberalism of the higher classes, but all this within certain limits which his feeling indicated to him correctly.
He had committed acts, while studying law, which had presented themselves to him as great abominations and had inspired him with contempt for himself at the time that he had committed them, but later, when he observed that such acts were also committed by distinguished personages and were not considered to be bad, he, without acknowledging them to be good, completely forgot them and was by no means grieved at the thought of them.
Having graduated from the law school in the tenth class and having received from his father money with which to provide himself with clothes, Iván Ilích ordered them at Charmeur's, attached to his fob a small medal with the inscription, "Respice finem," bade good-bye to the prince and to his tutor, dined with his companions at Donon's, and with new trunk, underwear, clothes, ​shaving and toilet appurtenances, and a plaid, all of them ordered and bought in the best shops, departed for the province to take the place of an official on the governor's special business, which his father had procured for him.
In the province Iván Ilích at once arranged the same easy and pleasant position for himself that he had enjoyed in the law school. He served, made a career for himself, and at the same time passed his time pleasantly and decently; now and then he journeyed to the counties at the command of the authorities, bore himself with dignity both toward those who stood above him and those who stood beneath him, and with precision and incorruptible honesty, which he could not help but be proud of, carried out the business entrusted to him, especially in matters of the dissenters.
In matters of his service he was, in spite of his youth and proneness to light merriment, extremely reserved, official, and even severe; but in matters of society he was often playful and witty, and always good-hearted, decent, and a "bon enfant," as was said of him by his chief and his chief's wife, at whose house he was a close friend.
There was also in the province a liaison with one of the ladies, who obtruded herself on the dandyish jurist; and there was a modiste, and drinking bouts with visiting aids-de-camp, and drives to a distant street after supper; there was also a subserviency to the chief, and even to the wife of the chief, but all this bore upon itself such an elevated tone of decency that it could not be called by any bad words: it all only fitted in with the French saying, "Il faut que jeunesse se passe." Everything took place with clean hands, in clean shirts, with French words, and, above all else, in the very highest society, consequently with the approval of most distinguished persons.
Thus Iván Ilích served for five years, and a change was made in the service. There appeared new institutions of law, and new men were needed.
​Iván Ilích became such a new man.
Iván Ilích was offered the place of examining magistrate, and accepted it, although this place was in another Government and it became necessary for him to give up the established relations and establish new ones. Iván Ilích was seen off by his friends, a group was formed, a silver cigarette case was presented to him, and he departed for the new place.
Iván Ilích was the same comme il faut, decent examining magistrate, who knew how to separate his official duties from his private life and who inspired general respect, that he had been as an official on special business. The post of the examining magistrate itself presented much more interest and attraction to him than the one he had formerly held. In his former office it had been a pleasure to him with an easy gait, and wearing Charmeur's undress uniform, to pass by the trembling petitioners, who were waiting for an audience, and by the official people, who envied him, and to enter directly the chief's private room and sit down with him at tea while smoking a cigarette, but there had been but few people who were directly dependent on his will. Such people had been chiefs of rural police and dissenters, whenever he was sent out on some special business; and he had been fond of treating such people, who were dependent on him, politely, almost chummily, and of making them feel that he, who might crush them, was treating them in a friendly and simple manner. There had been but few such people.
But now, while he was an examining magistrate, Iván Ilích felt that all, all without exception,—the most important and most self-satisfied people,—were in his hands, and that he needed only to write certain words on a paper with a certain heading, when such an important, self-satisfied man would be brought to him in the capacity of defendant or witness, who, if he had no mind to let him sit down, would stand before him and answer his ques​tions. Iván Ilích never misused this power and, on the contrary, tried to mitigate its expression; but the consciousness of this power and the possibility of mitigating it formed for him the chief interest and attraction of his new service. In the service itself, more especially in his examinations, he very soon acquired the manner of removing from himself all those circumstances which had nothing to do with the service, and of simplifying every extremely complicated matter to a form which would permit the matter to be reflected merely externally on paper, and which completely excluded his personal view and, above all, made it possible to observe the whole necessary formality. This was a new business, and he was one of the first men who in practice worked out the application of the statutes of the year 1864.
On arriving in the new city, in the capacity of examining magistrate, Iván Ilích made new acquaintances and connections, arranged matters for himself anew, and assumed a somewhat different tone. He placed himself in a certain dignified aloofness from the provincial authorities, chose the best circle consisting of members of the legal profession and of the wealthy gentry who lived in the city, and assumed a tone of slight dissatisfaction with the government, of moderate liberalism, and of cultured civism. Besides this, Iván Ilích, though making no change in the elegance of his toilet, in this new office stopped shaving his chin and permitted his beard to grow as it listed.
In this new city Iván Ilích's life again arranged itself in a most agreeable manner: the society which found fault with the governor was jolly and pleasant, the salary was larger, and not a small degree of pleasure was at that time added by the whist which Iván Ilích began to play, being possessed of the ability of playing cards merrily, and reflecting rapidly and very shrewdly, so that on the whole he was always winning.
​After two years of service in the new city, Iván Ilích met his future wife. Praskóvya Fédorovna Míkhel was the most attractive, clever, and brilliant girl of the circle in which he moved. Among the other amusements and relaxations from the labours of the examining magistrate, Iván Ilích established playful, light relations with Praskóvya Fédorovna.
Iván Ilích had been in the habit of dancing while he was an official on special business; but being an examining magistrate, he danced only as an exception. He now danced in this sense that, though he was serving in the new institutions and belonged to the fifth class, he could prove, when it came to dancing, that in this line he was better than anybody else. Thus he occasionally danced with Praskóvya Fédorovna toward the end of the evening, and mainly during these dances conquered her. She fell in love with him. He did not have any clear and definite intention of getting married, but when the girl fell in love with him, he put this question to himself: "Indeed, why can't I get married?"
Miss Praskóvya Fédorovna belonged to a good family of the gentry, and she had some little property. Iván Ilích could count on a more brilliant match, but this one was not bad, either. Iván Ilích had his salary, and she, so he hoped, would have as much again. It was a good alliance; she was a sweet, pretty, and absolutely decent woman. To say that Iván Ilích married because he loved his fiancée and found in her a sympathetic relation to his views of life would be as unjust as saying that he married because the people of his society approved of the match. Iván Ilích married for two reasons: he was doing something agreeable for himself in acquiring such a wife, and at the same time did what people in high positions regarded as regular.
And so Iván Ilích got married.
The process of marrying itself and the first period of ​his marital life, with the conjugal affection, new furniture, new dishes, new linen, passed very well until his wife's pregnancy, so that he began to think that his marriage would not only not impair that character of the easy, agreeable, merry, and always decent life, which was approved of by society and which he regarded as peculiar to life in general, but that it would even intensify it. But heginning with the first month of his wife's pregnancy, there appeared something new, unexpected, disagreeable, oppressive, and indecent, which it had been impossible to expect, and impossible to get rid of.
Without the least provocation, as it seemed to Iván Ilích, "de gaité de cœur," as he said to himself, his wife began to impair the pleasure and decency of life: she was without any cause jealous of him, demanded his attentions, nagged him in everything, and made disagreeable and vulgar scenes with him.
At first Iván Ilích hoped to free himself from the unpleasantness of this situation by means of that same light and decorous relation to life which had helped him out before; he tried to ignore his wife's disposition and continued to live lightly and agreeably, as before: he invited his friends to his house, to have a game, and tried himself to go to the club or to his friends; but his wife one day began with such energy to apply vulgar words to him, and continued so stubbornly to scold him every time that he did not comply with her demands, having apparently determined not to stop until he should submit, that is, should stay at home and experience tedium like herself, that he became frightened. He comprehended that marital life, at least with his wife, did not always contribute to the pleasures and the decency of life, but on the contrary frequently violated them, and that, therefore, it was necessary for him to defend himself against these violations. Iván Ilích began to look for means for this. His service was the one thing which impressed Praskóvya ​Fédorovna, and Iván Ilích began by means of his service and the duties resulting from it to struggle with his wife, hedging in his independent world.
With the birth of a child, with the attempts at nursing it and the various failures in this matter, with the real and imaginary diseases of the child and of the mother, when Iván Ilích's coöperation was demanded, though he was unable to comprehend a thing about these matters, the necessity for hedging in his world outside his family became more imperative for him.
In measure as his wife became more irritable and more exacting, Iván Ilích more and more transferred the centre of his life into his service. He began to love his service more and grew to be more ambitious than he had been before.
Very soon, not more than a year after his marriage, Iván Ilích understood that marital life, though it presented certain comforts of life, in reality was a very complex and difficult matter, in relation to which, in order to perform one's duty, that is, to lead a decent life, which is approved by society, it was necessary to work out a certain relation, just as in the case of the service.
And Iván Ilích worked out such a relation to the marital life. He demanded from his domestic life nothing but those comforts of a home dinner, of the hostess, of the bed, which she could give him, and, above all, that decency of external forms which were determined by public opinion. In everything else he sought merry enjoyment and decency, and he was thankful when he found them. Whenever he met with opposition and grumbling, he immediately withdrew to the separate world of his service, in which he hedged himself in and found his pleasure.
Iván Ilích was esteemed as a good official, and after three years he was made associate prosecuting attorney. His new duties, their importance, the possibility of sum​moning to court and incarcerating any person, the publicity of the speeches, the success which Iván Ilích had in this matter,—all this attracted him more and more to the service.
There came a succession of children. His wife became more irritable and grumbled more and more, but his relations to domestic life, as worked out by him, made him almost impermeable to her irritability.
After seven years of serving in one city, Iván Ilích was transferred to another Government in the capacity of prosecuting attorney. They moved; they had little money, and his wife did not like the place to which they moved. Though his salary was larger than before, the living was more expensive; besides, two of the children died, and so the domestic life became even more disagreeable for Iván Ilích.
Praskóvya Fédorovna reproached her husband for all mishaps in this their new place of abode. The majority of the subjects of conversation between husband and wife, especially the education of the children, led to questions which recalled former quarrels, and quarrels were ready to burst forth at any moment. There remained only those rare periods of amorousness which came over the two, but did not last long. Those were islets where they anchored for awhile, but they soon set out again into the sea of hidden enmity, which found its expression in their mutual alienation. This alienation might have grieved Iván Ilích, if he had thought that this ought not to be so; but he now recognized this situation not only as normal, but even as the aim of his activity in the family. His aim consisted in freeing himself more and more from these unpleasantnesses and giving them the character of innocuousness and decency; and this he obtained by passing less and less time with his family, and when he was compelled to be with them, he tried to make his position secure by the presence of third parties.
​But the chief thing was his service. The whole interest of life centred for him in the official world. This interest absorbed him. The consciousness of his power, of the possibility of ruining any man he wanted to ruin, his importance with his inferiors, even externally, upon entering court or meeting them elsewhere, his success before his superiors and his subordinates, and, above all, the mastery with which he conducted his cases, of which he was conscious,—all this all this gave him pleasure, and with his conversations with friends, and with dinners and whist, filled his life. Thus, in general, Iván Ilích's life continued to run as he thought that it ought to run,—agreeably and decently.
Thus he lived another seven years. His eldest daughter was now sixteen years old; another child had died, and there was left a boy, a gymnasiast, the subject of their contentions. Iván Ilích wanted to send him to a law school, but Praskóvya Fédorovna, to spite him, sent the boy to a gymnasium. The daughter studied at home and grew well, and the boy, too, studied not badly.