12
From that minute began the three days of unremitted screaming, so dreadful it could not be heard beyond two closed doors without horror. The moment he answered his wife, he understood that he was lost, there was no return, the end had come, the very end, but still his doubt had not been resolved and remained a doubt.
“Oh!” he cried in various intonations. “Ouh! Ouuuh!” He had started by screaming, “no!” and went on screaming “ouuuh.”
Throughout those three days, when time had ceased to exist for him, he floundered in the black sack that an unseen, irresistible power was forcing him into. He struggled as a man condemned to death struggles in the hands of the executioner, knowing he cannot save himself, and with every minute he felt that in spite of all his labor, he was coming closer and closer to the thing that terrified him. He felt his agony came from his being thrust into the black hole, and even more from his inability to crawl into it. And the belief that his life had been good prevented him crawling into it. It was this very justification of his life that plucked him back, held him tight, and tormented him most of all.
Suddenly some kind of force jolted him in the chest, in his side, stifled his breath even harder; he tumbled into the hole, and there, at the end of it, something glimmered. He experienced that sensation he sometimes got in a railway carriage, when you think you are moving forward while actually going backward, and suddenly realize your true direction.
“Yes, it was all wrong,” he said to himself, “but that doesn’t matter. It can be done, it can. But what is it?” he asked himself, and suddenly grew still.
This was on the third day, an hour before his death. Just then the little schoolboy crept into his father’s room and came up to his bed. The dying man was still screaming desperately and throwing his arms about. His hand fell on the boy’s head. The boy caught hold of it, pressed it to his lips, and burst into tears.
It was just at this point that Ivan Ilyich fell through, saw the glimmer of light, and it became clear to him that his life had not been what it should have been, but that it could still be put right. He asked himself, what is it, and fell still, listening. Here he felt someone kissing his hand. He opened his eyes and glanced at his son. He felt sorry for him. His wife came up to him. He glanced at her. She was gazing at him with a look of despair on her face, her mouth open, unwiped tears on her nose and cheeks. He felt sorry for her.
“Yes, I’m making them miserable,” he thought. “They’re sorry for me, but it will be better for them when I’m dead.” He wanted to say that, but didn’t have the strength. “Besides, why talk? I must just do it,” he thought. He glanced at his wife, indicating his son, and said, “Take him out . . . sorry for him . . . for you. . . .” He wanted to add prosti, “forgive me,” but said propusti, “let me pass,” and, lacking the strength to correct himself, gave up, knowing that the one who needed to know would understand him.
And suddenly it was clear to him that what had been exhausting him and would not leave him was suddenly leaving him, falling away on two sides and ten sides and all sides. He was sorry for them, he had to stop them suffering. Free them and free himself from all this pain. “How good and how simple,” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “Where’s it gone? Come on, where are you, pain?”
He started listening.
“Yes, there it is. Well, never mind, let it be.”
“And death? Where is it?”
He sought his old, habitual fear of death and could not find it. Where was death? What death? There was no fear, because there was no death.
Instead of death there was light.
“So that’s it!” he suddenly said aloud. “What joy!”
For him it all happened in a moment, and the meaning of that moment did not change. For those around him his agony continued two hours. Something was gurgling in his chest; his wasted body was twitching. Gradually the snoring gurgle came less frequently.
“It is finished!” someone above him said.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul. “Death is finished,” he said to himself. “There is no more death.”
He drew the air into himself, stopped in mid breath, stretched, and died.
HTML style by Stephen Thomas, University of Adelaide.
Modified by Skip for ESL Bits English Language Learning.