Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

by Leo Tolstoy

  ‘Resistance is impossible!’ he said to himself. ‘If I could only understand what it is all for! But that too is impossible. An explanation would be possible if it could be said that I have not lived as I ought to. But it is impossible to say that,’ and he remembered all the legality, correctitude, and propriety of his life. ‘That at any rate can certainly not be admitted,’ he thought, and his lips smiled ironically as if someone could see that smile and be taken in by it. ‘There is no explanation! Agony, death.… What for?’

  XI

  ANOTHER two weeks went by in this way and during that fortnight an event occurred that Iván Ilých and his wife had desired. Petríshchev formally proposed. It happened in the evening. The next day Praskóvya Fëdorovna came into her husband’s room considering how best to inform him of it, but that very night there had been a fresh change for the worse in his condition. She found him still lying on the sofa but in a different position. He lay on his back, groaning and staring fixedly straight in front of him.

  She began to remind him of his medicines, but he turned his eyes towards her with such a look that she did not finish what she was saying; so great an animosity, to her in particular, did that look express.

  ‘For Christ’s sake let me die in peace!’ he said.

  She would have gone away, but just then their daughter came in and went up to say good morning. He looked at her as he had done at his wife, and in reply to her inquiry about his health said dryly that he would soon free them all of himself. They were both silent and after sitting with him for a while went away.

  ‘Is it our fault?’ Lisa said to her mother. ‘It’s as if we were to blame! I am sorry for papa, but why should we be tortured?’

  The doctor came at his usual time. Iván Ilých answered ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, never taking his angry eyes from him, and at last said: ‘You know you can do nothing for me, so leave me alone.’

  ‘We can ease your sufferings.’

  ‘You can’t even do that. Let me be.’

  The doctor went into the drawing-room and told Praskóvya Fëdorovna that the case was very serious and that the only resource left was opium to allay her husband’s sufferings, which must be terrible.

  It was true, as the doctor said, that Iván Ilých’s physical sufferings were terrible, but worse than the physical sufferings were his mental sufferings which were his chief torture.

  His mental sufferings were due to the fact that that night, as he looked at Gerásim’s sleepy, good-natured face with its prominent cheek-bones, the question suddenly occurred to him: ‘What if my whole life has really been wrong?’

  It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend.

  ‘But if that is so,’ he said to himself, ‘and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and it is impossible to rectify it – what then?’

  He lay on his back and began to pass his life in review in quite a new way. In the morning when he saw first his footman, then his wife, then his daughter, and then the doctor, their every word and movement confirmed to him the awful truth that had been revealed to him during the night. In them he saw himself – all that for which he had lived – and saw clearly that it was not real at all, but a terrible and huge deception which had hidden both life and death. This consciousness intensified his physical suffering tenfold. He groaned and tossed about, and pulled at his clothing which choked and stifled him. And he hated them on that account.

  He was given a large dose of opium and became unconscious, but at noon his sufferings began again. He drove everybody away and tossed from side to side.

  His wife came to him and said:

  ‘Jean, my dear, do this for me. It can’t do any harm and often helps. Healthy people often do it.’

  He opened his eyes wide.

  ‘What? Take Communion? Why? It’s unnecessary! However.…’

  She began to cry.

  ‘Yes, do, my dear. I’ll send for our priest. He is such a nice man.’

  ‘All right. Very well,’ he muttered.

  When the priest came and heard his confession, Iván Ilých was softened and seemed to feel a relief from his doubts and consequently from his sufferings, and for a moment there came a ray of hope. He again began to think of the vermiform appendix and the possibility of correcting it. He received the sacrament with tears in his eyes.

  When they laid him down again afterwards he felt a moment’s ease, and the hope that he might live awoke in him again. He began to think of the operation that had been suggested to him. ‘To live! I want to live!’ he said to himself.

  His wife came in to congratulate him after his Communion, and when uttering the usual conventional words she added:

  ‘You feel better, don’t you?’

  Without looking at her he said ‘Yes’.

  Her dress, her figure, the expression of her face, the tone of her voice, all revealed the same thing. ‘This is wrong, it is not as it should be. All you have lived for and still live for is falsehood and deception, hiding life and death from you.’ And as soon as he admitted that thought, his hatred and his agonizing physical suffering again sprang up, and with that suffering a consciousness of the unavoidable, approaching end. And to this was added a new sensation of grinding shooting pain and a feeling of suffocation.

  The expression of his face when he uttered that ‘yes’ was dreadful. Having uttered it, he looked her straight in the eyes, turned on his face with a rapidity extraordinary in his weak state and shouted:

  ‘Go away! Go away and leave me alone!’

  XII

  FROM that moment the screaming began that continued for three days, and was so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror. At the moment he answered his wife he realized that he was lost, that there was no return, that the end had come, the very end, and his doubts were still unsolved and remained doubts.

  ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ he cried in various intonations. He had begun by screaming ‘I won’t!’ and continued screaming on the letter ‘o’.

  For three whole days, during which time did not exist for him, he struggled in that black sack into which he was being thrust by an invisible, resistless force. He struggled as a man condemned to death struggles in the hands of the executioner, knowing that he cannot save himself. And every moment he felt that despite all his efforts he was drawing nearer and nearer to what terrified him. He felt that his agony was due to his being thrust into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into it. He was hindered from getting into it by his conviction that his life had been a good one. That very justification of his life held him fast and prevented his moving forward, and it caused him most torment of all.

  Suddenly some force struck him in the chest and side, making it still harder to breathe, and he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a light. What had happened to him was like the sensation one sometimes experiences in a railway carriage when one thinks one is going backwards while one is really going forwards and suddenly becomes aware of the real direction.

  ‘Yes, it was all not the right thing,’ he said to himself, ‘but that’s no matter. It can be done. But what is the right thing?’ he asked himself, and suddenly grew quiet.

  This occurred at the end of the third day, two hours before his death. Just then his schoolboy son had crept softly in and gone up to the bedside. The dying man was still screaming de
sperately and waving his arms. His hand fell on the boy’s head, and the boy caught it, pressed it to his lips, and began to cry.

  At that very moment Iván Ilých fell through and caught sight of the light, and it was revealed to him that though his life had not been what it should have been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, ‘What is the right thing?’ and grew still, listening. Then he felt that someone was kissing his hand. He opened his eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for him. His wife came up to him and he glanced at her. She was gazing at him open-mouthed, with undried tears on her nose and cheek and a despairing look on her face. He felt sorry for her too.

  ‘Yes, I am making them wretched,’ he thought. ‘They are sorry, but it will be better for them when I die.’ He wished to say this but had not the strength to utter it. ‘Besides, why speak? I must act,’ he thought. With a look at his wife he indicated his son and said: ‘Take him away … sorry for him … sorry for you too …’ He tried to add, ‘forgive me’, but said ‘forego’ and waved his hand, knowing that He whose understanding mattered would understand.

  And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. ‘How good and how simple!’ he thought. ‘And the pain?’ he asked himself. ‘What has become of it? Where are you, pain?’

  He turned his attention to it.

  ‘Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be.’

  ‘And death … where is it?’

  He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. ‘Where is it? What death?’ There was no fear because there was no death.

  In place of death there was light.

  ‘So that’s what it is!’ he suddenly exclaimed aloud. ‘What joy!’

  To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. For those present his agony continued for another two hours. Something rattled in his throat, his emaciated body twitched, then the gasping and rattle became less and less frequent.

  ‘It is finished!’ said someone near him.

  He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.

  ‘Death is finished,’ he said to himself. ‘It is no more!’

  He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died.

  1 Youth must have its fling.

  2 The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 was followed by a thorough all-round reform of judicial proceedings.

  THE THREE HERMITS AN OLD LEGEND CURRENT IN

  THE VOLGA DISTRICT

  ‘And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.’ – Matt. vi. 7, 8.

  A BISHOP was sailing from Archangel to the Solovétsk Monastery; and on the same vessel were a number of pilgrims on their way to visit the shrines at that place. The voyage was a smooth one. The wind favourable, and the weather fair. The pilgrims lay on deck, eating, or sat in groups talking to one another. The Bishop, too, came on deck, and as he was pacing up and down, he noticed a group of men standing near the prow and listening to a fisherman, who was pointing to the sea and telling them something. The Bishop stopped, and looked in the direction in which the man was pointing. He could see nothing, however, but the sea glistening in the sunshine. He drew nearer to listen, but when the man saw him, he took off his cap and was silent. The rest of the people also took off their caps, and bowed.

  ‘Do not let me disturb you, friends,’ said the Bishop. ‘I came to hear what this good man was saying.’

  ‘The fisherman was telling us about the hermits,’ replied one, a tradesman, rather bolder than the rest.

  ‘What hermits?’ asked the Bishop, going to the side of the vessel and seating himself on a box. ‘Tell me about them. I should like to hear. What were you pointing at?’

  ‘Why, that little island you can just see over there,’ answered the man, pointing to a spot ahead and a little to the right. ‘That is the island where the hermits live for the salvation of their souls.’

  ‘Where is the island?’ asked the Bishop. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘There, in the distance, if you will please look along my hand. Do you see that little cloud? Below it, and a bit to the left, there is just a faint streak. That is the island.’

  The Bishop looked carefully, but his unaccustomed eyes could make out nothing but the water shimmering in the sun.

  ‘I cannot see it,’ he said. ‘But who are the hermits that live there?’

  ‘They are holy men,’ answered the fisherman. ‘I had long heard tell of them, but never chanced to see them myself till the year before last.’

  And the fisherman related how once, when he was out fishing, he had been stranded at night upon that island, not knowing where he was. In the morning, as he wandered about the island, he came across an earth hut, and met an old man standing near it. Presently two others came out, and after having fed him, and dried his things, they helped him mend his boat.

  ‘And what are they like?’ asked the Bishop.

  ‘One is a small man and his back is bent. He wears a priest’s cassock and is very old; he must be more than a hundred, I should say. He is so old that the white of his beard is taking a greenish tinge, but he is always smiling, and his face is as bright as an angel’s from heaven. The second is taller, but he also is very old. He wears a tattered, peasant coat. His beard is broad, and of a yellowish grey colour. He is a strong man. Before I had time to help him, he turned my boat over as if it were only a pail. He too, is kindly and cheerful. The third is tall, and has a beard as white as snow and reaching to his knees. He is stern, with over-hanging eyebrows; and he wears nothing but a mat tied round his waist.’

  ‘And did they speak to you?’ asked the Bishop.

  ‘For the most part they did everything in silence, and spoke but little even to one another. One of them would just give a glance, and the others would understand him. I asked the tallest whether they had lived there long. He frowned, and muttered something as if he were angry; but the oldest one took his hand and smiled, and then the tall one was quiet. The oldest one only said: “Have mercy upon us,” and smiled.’

  While the fisherman was talking, the ship had drawn nearer to the island.

  ‘There, now you can see it plainly, if your Grace will please to look,’ said the tradesman, pointing with his hand.

  The Bishop looked, and now he really saw a dark streak – which was the island. Having looked at it a while, he left the prow of the vessel, and going to the stern, asked the helmsman:

  ‘What island is that?’

  ‘That one,’ replied the man, ‘has no name. There are many such in this sea.’

  ‘Is it true that there are hermits who live there for the salvation of their souls?’

  ‘So it is said, your Grace, but I don’t know if it’s true. Fishermen say they have seen them; but of course they may only be spinning yarns.’

  ‘I should like to land on the island and see these men,’ said the Bishop. ‘How could I manage it?’

  ‘The ship cannot get close to the island,’ replied the helmsman, ‘but you might be rowed there in a boat. You had better speak to the captain.’

  The captain was sent for and came.

  ‘I should like to see these hermits,’ said the Bishop. ‘Could I not be rowed ashore?’

  The captain tried to dissuade him.

  ‘Of course it could be done,’ said he, ‘but we should lose much time. And if I might venture to say so to your Grace, the old men are not worth your pains. I have heard say that they are foolish old fellows, who understand nothing, and never speak a word, any more than the fish in the sea.’

  ‘I wish to see them,’ said the Bishop, ‘and I will pay y
ou for your trouble and loss of time. Please let me have a boat.’

  There was no help for it; so the order was given. The sailors trimmed the sails, the steersman put up the helm, and the ship’s course was set for the island. A chair was placed at the prow for the Bishop, and he sat there, looking ahead. The passengers all collected at the prow, and gazed at the island. Those who had the sharpest eyes could presently make out the rocks on it, and then a mud hut was seen. At last one man saw the hermits themselves. The captain brought a telescope and, after looking through it, handed it to the Bishop.

  ‘It’s right enough. There are three men standing on the shore. There, a little to the right of that big rock.’

  The Bishop took the telescope, got it into position, and he saw the three men: a tall one, a shorter one, and one very small and bent, standing on the shore and holding each other by the hand.

  The captain turned to the Bishop.

  ‘The vessel can get no nearer in than this, your Grace. If you wish to go ashore, we must ask you to go in the boat, while we anchor here.’

  The cable was quickly let out, the anchor cast, and the sails furled. There was a jerk, and the vessel shook. Then, a boat having been lowered, the oarsmen jumped in, and the Bishop descended the ladder and took his seat. The men pulled at their oars, and the boat moved rapidly towards the island. When they came within a stone’s throw, they saw three old men: a tall one with only a mat tied round his waist: a shorter one in a tattered peasant coat, and a very old one bent with age and wearing an old cassock – all three standing hand in hand.