After dinner, at seven o'clock, Praskovya Fedorovna came into the room in evening dress, her full bosom pushed up by her corset, and with traces of powder on her face.She had reminded him in the morning that they were going to the theatre.Sarah Bernhardt was visiting the town and they had a box, which he had insisted on their taking.Now he had forgotten about it and her toilet offended him, but he concealed his vexation when he remembered that he had himself insisted on their securing a box and going because it would be an instructive and aesthetic pleasure for the children.
Praskovya Fedorovna came in, self-satisfied but yet with a rather guilty air.She sat down and asked how he was, but, as he saw, only for the sake of asking and not in order to learn about it, knowing that there was nothing to learn -- and then went on to what she really wanted to say: that she would not on any account have gone but that the box had been taken and Helen and their daughter were going, as well as Petrishchev (the examining magistrate, their daughter's fiance) and that it was out of the question to let them go alone; but that she would have much preferred to sit with him for a while; and he must be sure to follow the doctor's orders while she was away.
"Oh, and Fedor Petrovich" (the fiance) "would like to come in.
May he? And Lisa?"
"All right."
Their daughter came in in full evening dress, her fresh young flesh exposed (****** a show of that very flesh which in his own case caused so much suffering), strong, healthy, evidently in love, and impatient with illness, suffering, and death, because they interfered with her happiness.
Fedor petrovich came in too, in evening dress, his hair curled *a la Capoul*, a tight stiff collar round his long sinewy neck, an enormous white shirt-front and narrow black trousers tightly stretched over his strong thighs.He had one white glove tightly drawn on, and was holding his opera hat in his hand.
Following him the schoolboy crept in unnoticed, in a new uniform, poor little fellow, and wearing gloves.Terribly dark shadows showed under his eyes, the meaning of which Ivan Ilych knew well.
His son had always seemed pathetic to him, and now it was dreadful to see the boy's frightened look of pity.It seemed to Ivan Ilych that Vasya was the only one besides Gerasim who understood and pitied him.
They all sat down and again asked how he was.A silence followed.Lisa asked her mother about the opera glasses, and there was an altercation between mother and daughter as to who had taken them and where they had been put.This occasioned some unpleasantness.
Fedor Petrovich inquired of Ivan Ilych whether he had ever seen Sarah Bernhardt.Ivan Ilych did not at first catch the question, but then replied: "No, have you seen her before?""Yes, in *Adrienne Lecouvreur*."
Praskovya Fedorovna mentioned some roles in which Sarah Bernhardt was particularly good.Her daughter disagreed.
Conversation sprang up as to the elegance and realism of her acting -- the sort of conversation that is always repeated and is always the same.
In the midst of the conversation Fedor Petrovich glanced at Ivan Ilych and became silent.The others also looked at him and grew silent.Ivan Ilych was staring with glittering eyes straight before him, evidently indignant with them.This had to be rectified, but it was impossible to do so.The silence had to be broken, but for a time no one dared to break it and they all became afraid that the conventional deception would suddenly become obvious and the truth become plain to all.Lisa was the first to pluck up courage and break that silence, but by trying to hide what everybody was feeling, she betrayed it.
"Well, if we are going it's time to start," she said, looking at her watch, a present from her father, and with a faint and significant smile at Fedor Petrovich relating to something known only to them.She got up with a rustle of her dress.
They all rose, said good-night, and went away.
When they had gone it seemed to Ivan Ilych that he felt better; the falsity had gone with them.But the pain remained --that same pain and that same fear that made everything monotonously alike, nothing harder and nothing easier.Everything was worse.
Again minute followed minute and hour followed hour.
Everything remained the same and there was no cessation.And the inevitable end of it all became more and more terrible.
"Yes, send Gerasim here," he replied to a question Peter asked.
