VII.
How it all happened in the third month of Iván Ilích's disease is hard to tell, because it all happened imperceptibly step by step, but what happened was that his wife, and his son, and the servants, and his acquaintances, and the doctors, and, above all else, he himself knew that the whole interest in him consisted for others in nothing but the question how soon he would vacate the place, would free the living from the embarrassment produced by his presence, and would himself be freed from his sufferings.
He slept less and less: he was given opium, and they began to inject morphine into him. But this did not make it easier for him. The dull dejection which he experienced in his half-sleeping state at first gave him relief as something new, but later it grew to be the same, and even more agonizing, than the sharp pain.
They prepared particular kinds of food for him according to the doctor's prescriptions; but these dishes tasted to him more and more insipid, and more and more abominable.
Special appliances, too, were used for his evacuations, and every time this was a torture to him,—a torture on account of the impurity, the indecency, and the smell, and from the consciousness that another person had to take part in it.
But in this most disagreeable matter Iván Ilích found his consolation. The peasant of the buffet, Gerásim, always came to carry out his vessel. Now Gerásim was a clean, fresh young peasant, who had improved much on his
52
