At the end of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the light that takes the place of death is the sign that fear disappears and that he, at last, sees what he did not see before: as soon as he feels pity for his son and wife, he looks for his habitual fear of death, does not find it, and discovers that in place of death there was light.
The light runs through the novella at four points. In chapter II, the same Russian word, svet, means both light and high society, and the narrator says that Ivan Ilyich, like a moth to a lamp, oriented himself by the best-placed people. In chapter V, the brother-in-law says there is no light in his eyes, and that night the sick man himself thinks: before there was light, now there is darkness. In chapter X, memory shows him a bright point back at the start of life, and then everything grows ever darker. In chapter XII, as he falls to the bottom of the black bag, he sees something shine.
The light returns only after two gestures: letting go of his defenses, when he gives up the certainty that his life was good, and feeling pity for others. He says aloud: so that's it! What joy! And when someone beside him says it is over, he repeats in his soul: death is over.
Both readings of the ending fit the text. In the religious one, the light is grace, prepared by the confession and communion of chapter XI. In the moral one, it is a discovery of one's own: that fear yields when attention passes from oneself to others. The book places both in the same instant.