The Death of Ivan Ilich, 1886, Master and Man 1895

Both these short stories have the theme of death, one of Tolstoy’s preoccupations in the last half of his life. “The Death of Ivan Illich is a harrowing account of the agonising end of an ordinary man who has achieved worldly success as a judge, but when faced with the dreadful inevitability of death, reviews his past and comes to the realisation that what he had valued then is of no significance now, that summoned before the highest court his case is a hopeless one, and that all he can do is, by dying, to rid his family of an unwanted encumbrance. In reaching this conclusion he loses his fear of death” (p236, Tolstoy, A Critical Introduction, Christian). In Master and Man two men become hopelessly lost in a fierce blizzard. “Nikita wraps himself in his threadbare coat and fatalistically gives himself over to the will of God. The merchant, warmly dressed and still bent on outsmarting his competitors, mounts the unharnessed horse and pushes on alone. But in the darkness and swirling snow he travels in a circle and returns to his sleigh. Slowly freezing, Nikita asks that the money owing him be given to his son and then begs his master’s forgiveness. He lies on his freezing worker, wraps the folds of his huge fur coat about them both, and as he feels warmth return to Nikita’s body he rejoices with his whole being over this discovery of the ecstasy of brotherly love” (p197, Tolstoy, Simmonds). Sophia hounds her husband until he says he will break his promise to publish it in the Northern Herald. It is a resounding success, helping to sell 15,000 copies of the Tolstoyan journal The Intermediary in just four days and 10,000 copies of Volume XIV of the Complete Works, the series handled by Sophia.