But the chief thing was his service. The whole interest of life centred for him in the official world. This interest absorbed him. The consciousness of his power, of the possibility of ruining any man he wanted to ruin, his importance with his inferiors, even externally, upon entering court or meeting them elsewhere, his success before his superiors and his subordinates, and, above all, the mastery with which he conducted his cases, of which he was conscious,—all this all this gave him pleasure, and with his conversations with friends, and with dinners and whist, filled his life. Thus, in general, Iván Ilích's life continued to run as he thought that it ought to run,—agreeably and decently.
Thus he lived another seven years. His eldest daughter was now sixteen years old; another child had died, and there was left a boy, a gymnasiast, the subject of their contentions. Iván Ilích wanted to send him to a law school, but Praskóvya Fédorovna, to spite him, sent the boy to a gymnasium. The daughter studied at home and grew well, and the boy, too, studied not badly.
