thing?” he asked himself, and suddenly he became quiet.
This was at the end of the third day, two hours before his death. At that very moment the schoolboy had stealthily crept into his father’s room and gone up to his bedside. The dying man was screaming and waving his arms. His hand fell on the schoolboy’s head. The boy snatched it, pressed it to his lips, and burst into tears.
At that very moment Ivan Ilyitch had rolled into the hole, and caught sight of the light, and it was revealed to him that his life had not been what it ought to have been, but that that could still be set right. He asked himself, “What is the right thing?”—and became quiet, listening. Then he felt someone was kissing his hand. He opened his eyes and glanced at his son. He felt sorry for him. His wife went up to him. He glanced at her. She was gazing at him with open mouth, the tears unwiped streaming over her nose and cheeks, a look of despair on her face. He felt sorry for her.
“Yes, I’m making them miserable,” he thought. “They’re sorry, but it will be better for them when I die.” He would have said this, but had not the strength to utter it. “Besides, why speak, I must act,” he thought. With a glance to his wife he pointed to his son and said—
“Take away … sorry for him. … And you too …” He tried to say “forgive,” but said “forgo” … and too weak to correct himself, shook his hand, knowing that He would understand whose understanding mattered.
And all at once it became clear to him that what had tortured him and would not leave him was suddenly dropping away all at once on both sides and on ten sides and on all sides. He was sorry for them, must act so that they might not suffer. Set them free and be free himself of those agonies. “How right and how simple!” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “Where’s it gone? Eh, where are you, pain?”
He began to watch for it.