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And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him.
“One need only assist nature, that’s all.”
There was light and now there is darkness. I was here and now I’m going there! Where?” A chill came over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbing of his heart.
This falsity around him and within him did more than anything else to poison his last days.
Whether it was morning or evening, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, it was all just the same: the gnawing, unmitigated, agonizing pain, never ceasing for an instant, the consciousness of life inexorably waning but not yet extinguished, the approach of that ever dreaded and hateful Death which was the only reality, and always the same falsity.
Why, and for what purpose, is there all this horror? But however much he pondered he found no answer.
It was true, as the doctor said, that Ivan Ilych’s physical sufferings were terrible, but worse than the physical sufferings were his mental sufferings which were his chief torture.
