The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy | Chapter 10

In Chapter 10 of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, two weeks later, Ivan Ilyich is so ill and weak, he can no longer leave the sofa. His pain increases, and he's tossed between two conflicting moods. Sometimes he experiences despair and the fearsome anticipation of his own death. Other times he feels hopeful, looking for signs of improvement. Even though he lives in town and is surrounded by his family, Ivan Ilyich feels more alone and isolated than ever It's as if he were at the bottom of the sea or under the earth. Ivan can only think of his past, beginning with memories of his early childhood, and moving forward toward his present situation. Sometimes the beautiful simplicity of his childhood memories pains him, and he wrenches his mind forward to this present. The chain of memories from his childhood to his adulthood brings Ivan to thoughts of the progression of his illness. Ivan realizes that during this period, both his life and his illness had merged. His childhood had become a time of joy. Yet, the closer he was to death, the worse his life became, and the more quickly it became worse. His suffering and yearning to understand might be eased if there was some way or something he could do to gain understanding. Maybe if he'd lived a better life, an explanation would come to him. But he rejects that his life should have been, or could have been, any different. Ivan Ilyich's life is contracting, and the brevity of this chapter reflects that. Stranded on the sofa, his thinking is limited to memories, or to noticing minute and pointless details of his immediate material surroundings, such as the sofa he's lying on. His happiest memories are of his childhood, but he tries to banish these memories to concentrate on his current experience. Perhaps he thinks he may postpone the moment of his death by making each present minute and second last longer. Perhaps he's trying to find where in his childhood or youth his life went wrong. He's looking for what caused the spiritual disease that has turned into the illness now killing him. He continues to dialogue with his authentic inner voice. When he asks why these sufferings, his soul wisely replies, for no reason. They just are so. At the end of this chapter, Ivan Ilyich is still not ready to accept that the life of propriety he's lived has been trivial and inauthentic.