Simon Prebble

Leo Tolstoy

Library Edition

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

It was this living a lie, all around him and within him that did most to poison the last days in the life of Ivan Ilyich.

And he has to take this knowledge to bed with him, along with the physical pain and the terror, often to spend a near-sleepless night because of the pain. And next morning he has to get up again, put on his clothes, go to court, talk, write or, if he doesn’t go out, stay in with every one of those twenty-four hours that make up a day and a night, each one of them an agony. And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to understand and pity him.

One glittering drop of hope followed by a raging sea of despair, and nothing but pain, more pain, more anguish, always the same thing.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich quotes

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