The Theme in the Work
The question of life's meaning reaches Ivan Ilyich Golovin only in ch. IX, when there is no life left to live in another way, and the whole book is built so that it arrives late. Before, his life has measures and not meaning: the agreeable and the decorous, the joys of self-love, vanity, and card games. Afterward, the question takes a fixed form, that of not having lived as one should, and an answer he postpones for three chapters and accepts only in the last.
In ch. II the narrator gives the verdict before the biography:
Прошедшая история жизни Ивана Ильича была самая простая и обыкновенная и самая ужасная, The past history of Ivan Ilyich's life was the simplest, most ordinary, and most terrible.
In ch. III he ranks Ivan Ilyich's joys, and the true one is the game:
Радости служебные были радости самолюбия; радости общественные были радости тщеславия; но настоящие радости Ивана Ильича были радости игры в винт., The joys of service were joys of self-love; social joys were joys of vanity; but Ivan Ilyich's true joys were the joys of playing vint.
In ch. IX the voice of the soul asks whether he lived well and pleasantly, and the joys come undone one by one, except those of childhood; he sees his career as a descent:
Точно равномерно я шел под гору, воображая, что иду на гору. Так и было. В общественном мнении я шел на гору, и ровно настолько из-под меня уходила жизнь… И вот готово, умирай!, It was as if I were going down a mountain at an even pace, imagining that I was climbing it. And so it was. In public opinion I was climbing the mountain, and to the same degree life was slipping away from under me... And there, it's done, now die!
And it reaches the question he pushes away:
«Может быть, я жил не так, как должно?» — приходило ему вдруг в голову. «Но как же не так, когда я делал все как следует?», Could it be that I have not lived as I should? it suddenly came into his head. But how could that be, when I did everything as I ought? he said to himself.
In ch. X, living only on memories, he wants at least to understand what it is all for, and the only explanation would be admitting that he did not live as he should, which seems impossible to him:
Одна точка светлая там, назади, в начале жизни, а потом все чернее и чернее и все быстрее и быстрее., One bright point back there, at the beginning of life, and then everything blacker and blacker, and faster and faster.
In ch. XI, before the face of Gerasim, the hypothesis imposes itself, and with it the idea that the impulses he stifled were the real thing:
а что, как и в самом деле вся моя жизнь, сознательная жизнь, была «не то», and what if, in fact, my whole life, my conscious life, was «not that»?
In ch. XII, the defense is the last obstacle:
Пролезть же ему мешает признанье того, что жизнь его была хорошая., What keeps him from getting through is the acknowledgment that his life was good.
As he falls into the hole, he tells himself that it was all not that, but that that can still be done; he asks what that is, and falls silent. Then he feels pity for his son and his wife.
The book does not say what that is (то, our translation), and this is deliberate: the answer Ivan Ilyich does not formulate is what he does next, feel pity for others and want to free them from suffering. Meaning does not arrive as an idea; it arrives as a gesture, and the gesture comes when he can no longer live in any other way, which makes the discovery at once a condemnation of the past life and a whole life condensed into an instant.
Who Embodies It
Ivan Ilyich is life without a question, from ch. II to ch. VIII, and the question without life, from ch. IX to ch. XII. Gerasim is the meaning that needs no question, the service done by someone who knows he is going to die, as seen in ch. VII:
Все умирать будем. Отчего же не потрудиться?, We will all die. Why not take the trouble?
Vasya, the son who kisses his hand in ch. XII, is the occasion for the gesture that answers what he was unable to say.
Where It Appears
- Chapter II: The narrator calls Ivan Ilyich's life the simplest, most common, and most terrible, and he measures it by the agreeable and the correct.
- Chapter III: Ivan Ilyich lists the joys of service, society, and play, and the true one is vint.
- Chapter IX: The voice of the soul asks whether Ivan Ilyich lived well; life appears to him as a descent taken for a climb, and he dismisses the hypothesis that he lived wrongly.
- Chapter X: Ivan Ilyich wants to understand what it is all for, and the only explanation seems impossible to him.
- Chapter XI: Before Gerasim, Ivan Ilyich suspects that his whole life was not that, and the defense of service and family proves weak.
- Chapter XII: Ivan Ilyich discovers that everything was not that, but that that can still be done; he feels pity for his son and wife and sees the light.
Where the Readings Diverge
The discovery of ch. XII is read either as a late redemption or as a condemnation. In the first, a single instant is enough to change the meaning of everything, and the text says that the meaning of that instant no longer changes; in the second, the whole life was lost, and the end merely names it.
The text gives weight to both. The phrase everything was not that condemns the past life without mitigation, and the phrase that can still be done opens a future of one hour. The book does not ask the reader to choose, but asks that the reader not forget ch. II: the terrible life was the most common one, and the question holds for whoever reads.