Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

He slept less and less. He was given opium and hypodermic injections of morphine, but this did not relieve him. The dull depression he experienced in a somnolent condition at first gave him a little relief, but only as something new, afterwards it became as distressing as the pain itself or even more so.

Special foods were prepared for him by the doctors’ orders, but all those foods became increasingly distasteful and disgusting to him.

For his excretions also special arrangements had to be made, and this was a torment to him every time – a torment from the uncleanliness, the unseemliness, and the smell, and from knowing that another person had to take part in it.

But just through this most unpleasant matter, Iván Ilých obtained comfort. Gerásim, the butler’s young assistant, always came in to carry the things out. Gerásim was a clean, fresh peasant lad, grown stout on town food and always cheerful and bright. At first the sight of him, in his clean Russian peasant costume, engaged on that disgusting task embarrassed Iván Ilých.

Once when he got up from the commode too weak to draw up his trousers, he dropped into a soft armchair and looked with horror at his bare, enfeebled thighs with the muscles so sharply marked on them.

Gerásim with a firm light tread, his heavy boots emitting a pleasant smell of tar and fresh winter air, came in wearing a clean Hessian apron, the sleeves of his print shirt tucked up over his strong bare young arms; and refraining from looking at his sick master out of consideration for his feelings, and restraining the joy of life that beamed from his face, he went up to the commode.

‘Gerásim!’ said Iván Ilých in a weak voice.

Gerásim started, evidently afraid he might have committed some blunder, and with a rapid movement turned his fresh, kind, simple young face which just showed the first downy signs of a beard.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘That must be very unpleasant for you. You must forgive me. I am helpless.’

‘Oh, why, sir,’ and Gerásim’s eyes beamed and he showed his glistening white teeth, ‘what’s a little trouble? It’s a case of illness with you, sir.’

And his deft strong hands did their accustomed task, and he went out of the room stepping lightly. Five minutes later he as lightly returned.

Iván Ilých was still sitting in the same position in the armchair.

‘Gerásim,’ he said when the latter had replaced the freshly-washed utensil. ‘Please come here and help me.’ Gerásim went up to him. ‘Lift me up. It is hard for me to get up, and I have sent Dmítri away.’

Gerásim went up to him, grasped his master with his strong arms deftly but gently, in the same way that he stepped – lifted him, supported him with one hand, and with the other drew up his trousers and would have set him down again, but Iván Ilých asked to be led to the sofa. Gerásim, without an effort and without apparent pressure, led him, almost lifting him, to the sofa and placed him on it.

‘Thank you. How easily and well you do it all!’

Gerásim smiled again and turned to leave the room. But Iván Ilých felt his presence such a comfort that he did not want to let him go.

‘One thing more, please move up that chair. No, the other one – under my feet. It is easier for me when my feet are raised.’

Gerásim brought the chair, set it down gently in place, and raised Iván Ilých’s legs on to it. It seemed to Iván Ilých that he felt better while Gerásim was holding up his legs.

‘It’s better when my legs are higher,’ he said. ‘Place that cushion under them.’

Gerásim did so. He again lifted the legs and placed them, and again Iván Ilých felt better while Gerásim held his legs. When he set them down Iván Ilých fancied he felt worse.

‘Gerásim,’ he said. ‘Are you busy now?’

‘Not at all, sir,’ said Gerásim, who had learnt from the townsfolk how to speak to gentlefolk.

‘What have you still to do?’

‘What have I to do? I’ve done everything except chopping the logs for to-morrow.’

‘Then hold my legs up a bit higher, can you?’

‘Of course I can. Why not?’ And Gerásim raised his master’s legs higher and Iván Ilých thought that in that position he did not feel any pain at all.

‘And how about the logs?’

‘Don’t trouble about that, sir. There’s plenty of time.’

Iván Ilých told Gerásim to sit down and hold his legs, and began to talk to him. And strange to say it seemed to him that he felt better while Gerásim held his legs up.

After that Iván Ilých would sometimes call Gerásim and get him to hold his legs on his shoulders, and he liked talking to him. Gerásim did it all easily, willingly, simply, and with a good nature that touched Iván Ilých. Health, strength, and vitality in other people were offensive to him, but Gerásim’s strength and vitality did not mortify but soothed him.