A Fully Glossed Russian Text of “The Death of Ivan Ilich” with Explanatory and Interpretive Annotations
Chapter 9
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- This is the first mention of the image of a narrow, black sack or bag or hole into which Ivan Ilich feels himself being pushed. The image has played an important role in interpretations of the novel which emphasize that Ivan Ilich, led by his sufferings, becomes spiritually reborn as his physical life ebbs away. The black bag, by its shape and its color and the fact that when, in chapter twelve, Ivan Ilich feels that he has broken through the end of the bag into the light, has been seen as an effective symbol of the birth canal. Likewise, the trauma of birth seems well matched with the trauma of Ivan Ilich's suffering and death. This interpretation, of course, fits very well with the concept that the novel privileges the method of "understanding in reverse." It seems quite natural in this context that the image of death should be tautologous with an image of life and also that Ivan Ilich's attitude toward this image should be ambiguous: "he struggled, yet co-operated." ↵
- Here is another allusion to the narrative of Christ's Passion as contained in the Gospels, specifically to Jesus' outcry "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46 inter alia). ↵
- Here, as in the preceding sentence, Ivan Ilich uses the form of the pronoun "you" which is employed when speaking to very close friends and family members, and also, not incidentally, when speaking to God in prayer. "What did I to you" might well be rendered (as the Maude translation does) "What have I done to Thee"? ↵
- Here is the first explicit indication that Ivan Ilich does indeed have a soul, that he is more than the physiological being which is suffering so dreadfully from the effects of disease. We remember that in Chapter Five his "inner life" was still completely a question of the physical organs located within his body. Here the inner life and voice represent a qualitatively different kind of life. Ivan Ilich's attention has finally been redirected from his physical life and sufferings to his spiritual life and sufferings. We note that since chapter seven it has seemed to him that his spiritual suffering has in fact been greater than his physical pain. At the end of Chapter Nine the thought occurs to him that "Maybe I didn't live as I ought to have done," that is, that he is where he is by his own actions and responsibility. This thought, and the conclusion arising from it, is repeated yet again in each of the three remaining chapters. ↵
- "Sleduet" is a form of the verb "sledovat'" ("to follow"). It is used here in its conventional sense as an impersonal synonym of the personal construction of necessity, "dolzhen + infinitive, in the meaning "as I was supposed to," "as I should have." But the expression also suggests its literal sense of "following." Ivan Ilich is confident that his life could not have been "ne tak" (lit., "not so" but often suggesting "wrong, improper") because he has always behaved as he has in emulation of, following in the footsteps of, his betters and peers in society. ↵
- The word "sud" can mean "court" in the sense of the judge(s) charged with superintending a trial and it can also mean the trial itself or the result of the trial, the judgement that is rendered by the court. This latter meaning is exemplified in the Russian religious phrase "Strashnyj sud," what in English is called "the Last Judgement" or "Judgement Day." ↵
Late at night (his) wife returned
She came in on tip-toes
but he heard her
(he) opened (his) eyes and hurriedly closed (them) again
She wanted to send away Gerasim and herself to sit with him
He opened (his) eyes and said
No. Go
Are you suffering very (much)
(It's) all the same
Take (some) opium
He agreed and took (lit. drank) (it)
She left
Until about 3:00 o'clock he was in (a state of) tormenting oblivion
To him (it) seemed that (they) are shoving him (together) with (his) pain somewhere into a narrow black sack and deep
and (they) ever farther are shoving and (they) cannot shove (him) in all the way
And this terrible for him act is being accomplished with suffering
And he is both afraid and wants to fall right into there
(he) both fights (it) and helps]
And here suddenly he burst through and fell, and (he) came to himself (lit., opened his eyes)
(As) always the same Gerasim is sitting at his (Ivan Ilich's) feet on the bed
(he) dozes peacefully, patiently
And he (Ivan Ilich) is lying (there), having raised (his) wasted feet in stockings onto his (Gerasim's) shoulders
the same candle with the shade and the same unceasing pain
Go away, Gerasim, whispered he
It's okay, I'll sit a while (more), sir
No, Go away
He took down (his) legs, lay down on his side onto his arm
and he became sorry for himself
He waited only (until) Gerasim had gone out into the adjacent room
and (he) no longer could (lit., no longer (even) began to) restrain himself and (he) began to cry like a child
He cried about (his) helplessness
about his terrible loneliness
about the cruelty of people, about the cruelty of God, about the absence of God
Why have you done all this? Why have (you) brought me here? For what, for what are (you) so terribly tormenting me
He did not even expect an answer
and (he) cried about (the fact) that there is no and cannot be (any) answer
The pain raised itself up again, but he did not stir (i.e., didn't move a muscle), did not call
He said to himself: "Well, still (more), well (go ahead and) beat (at me)! But what for? What did I do to you, what for?
Then he fell silent
(he) not only stopped crying, (he) stopped breathing and all (of him) became attention
as if he was listening not to a voice speaking in sounds
but to the voice of (his) soul, to the course of thoughts which was raising itself up in him
What (is it) you need
was the first clear, capable of being expressed in words idea that he heard
What do you need? What (is it) you need? he repeated to himself
What (is it)
Not to suffer. To live, replied he
And again all of him gave itself over to an attention so intense that even the pain did not distract him
To live? How to live? asked the voice of (his) soul
Yes, to live, as I lived before--well, pleasantly
As you lived before, well and pleasantly? asked the voice
And he (Ivan Ilich) began to sort through in imagination the best minutes of his pleasant life
But--a strange thing--all these best minutes of (his) pleasant life seemed now (to be) not at all what (they) had seemed (to be) then
All (of them), except the first recollections of childhood
There, in childhood, (there) was something so actually pleasant
with which (it) would have been possible to live, if it would return
But the person who experienced those pleasant things no longer was (i.e., existed)
this was as it were a recollection about some other (person)
As soon as that (time) began, of which the result was the current he (i.e., his current self), Ivan Ilich
so (also) all (of the things which) seemed then (to be) joys now before his eyes melted (away) and turned into something completely trivial (lit., into nothing) and often repulsive
And the further from childhood, the closer to the present
the more trivial and more dubious were the joys
This (time of decline) began from (the time when he started) Law School
There (there) was still something truly good
there (there) was merriment
there (there) was friendship, there (there) were hopes
But in the higher grades already these good minutes were more rare
Then, at the time of (his) first official post with the (provincial) governor
again (there) appeared good minutes
these were recollections about love for (a) woman
Then all that got spoiled (lit., displaced)
and still less of (what was) good did (there) begin (to be)
Further (on) (there was) still less of the good, and the farther, the less
(His) marriage . . . so accidentally (i.e., thoughtlessly) (entered into), and the disenchantment, and the smell out of the mouth of (his) wife, and the sensuality, the pretense
And this dead service (at the office)
these worries about money
and so on for a year, for two, and ten, and twenty
and always the same
And the farther, the more dead
(It's) exactly (like) I was steadily going downhill
while imagining that (I) am going uphill
That's the way it was
In society's opinion I was going uphill
and just so much (i.e., in the same proportion) from beneath me life was departing
and here (it's) ready, (so) die
So just what is this
For what
(It) can't be
(It) can't be that (my) life was so senseless, repulsive
And if in fact it (i.e., life) is so repulsive and senseless
so why then die and die suffering
Something is not right (lit., so)
Maybe I lived not rightly, (not) as (I) should (have)
(it) came suddenly into his head
But how (could it be) not right
when I have done everything as (it) behooves (us to do)
said he to himself and immediately drove away from himself this one and only solution of the entrie riddle of life and death as (though it were) something absolutely impossible
What is it you want now
To live? To live how
To live as you live in court
when the bailiff proclaims "The court is coming
The court is coming, here comes the court he repeated to himself
Here it is, judgement
But I am not guilty
cried he with malice
For what
And he stopped crying
and having turned himself with his face to the wall
(he) began to think over and over about one and the same thing
why, for what is all this horror
But however much he thought
he did not find an answer
And when to him would come, as it would come to him often, the thought
(the thought) that all this is happening because he lived not rightly
he immediately would recall all the correctness of his life and would drive away this strange thought
