The Death of Ivan Ilych (Classics To Go)

by Leo Tolstoy

Though there were some disputes between husband and wife, they were both so well satisfied and had so much to do that it all passed off without any serious quarrels.

“It’s all the same to them, but they will die too!

Such a pitiful death!

“No . . . o . . . thing. I upset it.” (“Why speak of it? She won’t understand,” he thought.)

While she was kissing him he hated her from the bottom of his soul and with difficulty refrained from pushing her away.

Ivan Ilych wanted to weep, wanted to be petted and cried over,

But strange to say none of those best moments of his pleasant life now seemed at all what they had then seemed — none of them except the first recollections of childhood.

“What if my whole life has been wrong?”