The Death of Ivan Ilych

The story begins in the St. Petersburg law courts, where three friends and colleagues of a man named Ivan Ilych learn from the newspaper that Ivan has died. No one seems deeply affected by this, but one of them, Peter Ivanovich, goes to the wake at Ivan's house that night out of a sense of obligation. There Peter finds his friend Schwartz, who's eager to leave the dreary service and spend the evening doing something more fun: playing bridge. Peter Ivanovich also has a chat with Praskovya Fedorovna, Ivan's widow, who puts on a spectacular (but rather unconvincing) display of tears and then promptly asks Peter how she can milk Ivan's death for all the pension money it's worth. As for Peter himself, the death of somebody so similar to him makes him very nervous. After a valiant effort not to let Ivan's funeral service affect him in the slightest, he leaves in a hurry to get to the bridge game. Now that the "prologue" is finished, the narrator gets down to the business of telling us Ivan's story. Ivan, who died at only forty-five, had a life that was "most simple and ordinary and therefore most terrible" (2.1). The narrator then hurries us through Ivan's childhood and school days. Young Ivan is a likable fellow: smart, good-humored, well balanced, sociable, and witty. He has a few scandalous debauches, but not too many. After attending law school he slowly works his way up the career ladder as a legal official, moving from province to province every few years or so. In one of his provincial postings he meets a girl named Praskovya Fedorovna, whom he marries, though he doesn't really love her. Ivan is fairly successful at work (enjoying the sense of power that legal work gives him), and popular socially. Initially his marriage is pleasant too, but when Praskovya Fedorovna becomes moody and difficult during her first pregnancy, Ivan can't deal with it. As a result he retreats into his work and his bridge games, which seem to be his real passion in life. His marriage never recovers, but Ivan doesn't really care about that. Despite his marriage, Ivan finds life to be quite pleasant. At least Praskovya Fedorovna provides him with a daughter (Lisa) and young son (Vasya).