Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/237

The Death of Ivan Il'ich was nothing to find out. Then she began to say that she was bound to go, though she would give anything not to go; but the box was taken and Elen was going and his daughter, and Petrishchev (the judicial assessor, his daughter's fiancé) and that it was impossible to let them go alone, but that it would have been much more agreeable to her to sit at home with him, only he was to promise to obey the doctor's directions during her absence.

"Yes, and Thedor Dmitrievich (the fiancè) would like to come in and see him. Might he come? And Liza?"

"Let them come in if they like."

His daughter came in dressed up, with her bare young body, the same sort of body which was causing him all his suffering, and she showed him her dress. A strong, healthy young girl, visibly in love with herself, and disgusted with disease, suffering, and death, as interfering with her happiness.

Thedor Dmitrievich also came in in a dress coat, with his hair curled à la capoul, with a long, sinewy neck encircled by a white linen collar, with an enormous white shirt front and narrow black trousers, with a tight-fitting white glove on one hand, and an opera hat

After him crept in, unobserved, the gymnasiast, also, in his new little uniform, poor little wretch, in gloves, and with frightful blue lines under his eyes, the significance of which Ivan Il'ich knew very well.

He had always felt sorry for his son, and it was terrible to behold his frightened and compassionate