“There was the usual waiting and the important air assumed by the doctor, with which he was so familiar (resembling that which he himself assumed in court), and the sounding and listening, and the questions which called for answers that were foregone conclusions and were evidently unnecessary, and the look of importance which implied that “if only you put yourself in our hands we will arrange everything—we know indubitably how it has to be done, always in the same way for everybody alike.” It was all just as it was in the law courts. The doctor put on just the same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused person.”
“In all this the thing was to exclude everything fresh and vital, which always disturbs the regular course of official business, and to admit only official relations with people, and then only on offic...”
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“Ivan Ilych’s chief pleasure was giving little dinners to which he invited men and women of good social position, and just as his drawing-room resembled all other drawing-rooms so did his enjoyable lit...”
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“The pleasures connected with his work were pleasures of ambition; his social pleasures were those of vanity.”
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“She began to wish he would die; yet she did not want him to die because then his salary would cease. And this irritated her against him still more.”
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
“To Ivan Ilych only one question was important: was his case serious or not? But the doctor ignored that inappropriate question. From his point of view it was not the one under consideration, the real ...”
The Death of Ivan Ilyich