the manner of a virtuoso, he would even allow himself to let the

human and official relations mingle. He let himself do this just
because he felt that he could at any time he chose resume the

strictly official attitude again and drop the human relation. and
he did it all easily, pleasantly, correctly, and even artistically.

In the intervals between the sessions he smoked, drank tea, chatted
a little about politics, a little about general topics, a little

about cards, but most of all about official appointments. Tired,
but with the feelings of a virtuoso -- one of the first violins who

has played his part in an orchestra with precision -- he would
return home to find that his wife and daughter had been out paying

calls, or had a visitor, and that his son had been to school, had
done his homework with his tutor, and was surely learning what is

taught at High Schools. Everything was as it should be. After
dinner, if they had no visitors, Ivan Ilych sometimes read a book

that was being much discussed at the time, and in the evening
settled down to work, that is, read official papers, compared the

depositions of witnesses, and noted paragraphs of the Code applying
to them. This was neither dull nor amusing. It was dull when he

might have been playing bridge, but if no bridge was available it
was at any rate better than doing nothing or sitting with his wife.

Ivan Ilych's chief pleasure was giving little dinners to which he
invited men and women of good social position, and just as his

drawing-room resembled all other drawing-rooms so did his enjoyable
little parties resemble all other such parties.

Once they even gave a dance. Ivan Ilych enjoyed it and
everything went off well, except that it led to a violent quarrel

with his wife about the cakes and sweets. Praskovya Fedorovna had
made her own plans, but Ivan Ilych insisted on getting everything

from an expensive confectioner and ordered too many cakes, and the
quarrel occurred because some of those cakes were left over and the

confectioner's bill came to forty-five rubles. It was a great and
agreeable" target="_blank" title="a.令人不悦的">disagreeable quarrel. Praskovya Fedorovna called him "a fool and

an imbecile," and he clutched at his head and made angry allusions
to divorce.

But the dance itself had been enjoyable. The best people were
there, and Ivan Ilych had danced with Princess Trufonova, a sister

of the distinguishedfounder of the Society "Bear My Burden".
The pleasures connected with his work were pleasures of

ambition; his social pleasures were those of vanity; but Ivan
Ilych's greatest pleasure was playing bridge. He acknowledged that

whatever agreeable" target="_blank" title="a.令人不悦的">disagreeableincident happened in his life, the pleasure
that beamed like a ray of light above everything else was to sit

down to bridge with good players, not noisy partners, and of course
to four-handed bridge (with five players it was annoying to have to

stand out, though one pretended not to mind), to play a clever and
serious game (when the cards allowed it) and then to have supper

and drink a glass of wine. after a game of bridge, especially if
he had won a little (to win a large sum was unpleasant), Ivan Ilych

went to bed in a specially good humour.
So they lived. they formed a circle of acquaintances among

the best people and were visited by people of importance and by
young folk. In their views as to their acquaintances, husband,

wife and daughter were entirely agreed, and tacitly and unanimously
kept at arm's length and shook off the various shabby friends and

relations who, with much show of affection, gushed into the
drawing-room with its Japanese plates on the walls. Soon these

shabby friends ceased to obtrude themselves and only the best
people remained in the Golovins' set.

Young men made up to Lisa, and Petrishchev, an examining
magistrate and Dmitri Ivanovich Petrishchev's son and sole heir,

began to be so attentive to her that Ivan Ilych had already spoken
to Praskovya Fedorovna about it, and considered whether they should

not arrange a party for them, or get up some private theatricals.
So they lived, and all went well, without change, and life

flowed pleasantly.
IV

They were all in good health. It could not be called ill
health if Ivan Ilych sometimes said that he had a queer taste in

his mouth and felt some discomfort in his left side.
But this discomfort increased and, though not exactly painful,

grew into a sense of pressure in his side accompanied by ill
humour. And his irritability became worse and worse and began to

mar the agreeable, easy, and correct life that had established
itself in the Golovin family. Quarrels between husband and wife

became more and more frequent, and soon the ease and amenity
disappeared and even the decorum was barely maintained. Scenes

again became frequent, and very few of those islets remained on
which husband and wife could meet without an explosion. Praskovya

Fedorovna now had good reason to say that her husband's temper was
trying. With characteristicexaggeration she said he had always

had a dreadfultemper, and that it had needed all her good nature
to put up with it for twenty years. It was true that now the

quarrels were started by him. His bursts of temper always came
just before dinner, often just as he began to eat his soup.

Sometimes he noticed that a plate or dish was chipped, or the food
was not right, or his son put his elbow on the table, or his

daughter's hair was not done as he liked it, and for all this he
blamed Praskovya Fedorovna. At first she retorted and said

agreeable" target="_blank" title="a.令人不悦的">disagreeable things to him, but once or twice he fell into such a
rage at the beginning of dinner that she realized it was due to

some physical derangement brought on by taking food, and so she
restrained herself and did not answer, but only hurried to get the

dinner over. She regarded this self-restraint as highly
praiseworthy. Having come to the conclusion that her husband had

a dreadfultemper and made her life miserable, she began to feel
sorry for herself, and the more she pitied herself the more she

hated her husband. She began to wish he would die; yet she did not
want him to die because then his salary would cease. And this

irritated her against him still more. She considered herself
dreadfully unhappy just because not even his death could save her,

and though she concealed her exasperation, that hidden exasperation
of hers increased his irritation also.

After one scene in which Ivan Ilych had been particularly
unfair and after which he had said in explanation that he certainly

was irritable but that it was due to his not being well, she said
that he was ill it should be attended to, and insisted on his going

to see a celebrated doctor.
He went. Everything took place as he had expected and as it

always does. There was the usual waiting and the important air
assumed by the doctor, with which he was so familiar (resembling

that which he himself assumed in court), and the sounding and
listening, and the questions which called for answers that were

foregone conclusions and were evidently unnecessary, and the look
of importance which implied that "if only you put yourself in our

hands we will arrange everything -- we know indubitably how it has
to be done, always in the same way for everybody alike." It was

all just as it was in the law courts. The doctor put on just the
same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused

person.
The doctor said that so-and-so indicated that there was so-

and-so inside the patient, but if the investigation of so-and-so
did not confirm this, then he must assume that and that. If he

assumed that and that, then...and so on. To Ivan Ilych only one
question was important: was his case serious or not? But the

doctor ignored that inappropriate question. From his point of view
it was not the one under consideration, the real question was to

decide between a floating kidney, chronic catarrh, or appendicitis.
It was not a question the doctor solved brilliantly, as it seemed

to Ivan Ilych, in favour of the appendix, with the reservation that