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"Well, Gerasim, my friend!" said Peter Ivanovich, for the sake of saying something, "a sad affair, isn't it?"

"It is the will of God; we shall all have to go through the same thing," said Gerasim, showing his white, compact, clodhopper teeth, and like a man in the whirl of strenuous work, he briskly opened the door, called to the coachman, helped Peter Ivanovich to his seat, and sprang back to the staircase, as if occupied by the thought of all he had still to do.

Peter Ivanovich felt a particular delight in breathing the fresh air, after the smell of the incense, the corpse, and the carbolic acid.

"Where to?" asked the coachman.

"It is not late. I'll go to Theodor Vasilevich's."

And so Peter Ivanovich went. And, in fact, he found them at the end of the first rubber, so he just came in time to take a hand.

II.

The past history of the life of Ivan Il'ich was most simple and ordinary, and most terrible. Ivan Il'ich died in his forty-eighth year, he was an official in the Law Courts. He was the son of an official who had made his way in St. Petersburg through various Ministries and Departments, following a career which brings people into a certain position from which, although it has clearly been proved that they are unfit for any sort of real service, they cannot be discharged by reason of their long