a little, but the pain soon passed off. All this time, indeed, Ivan Il'ich felt particularly bright and well. He wrote: "I feel that fifteen of my years have leaped from off my shoulders." He thought he should have finished in September, but the business dragged on till the middle of October. By way of compensation, it was also most excellent; it was not only he that said it, everyone who saw it told him that it was so.
In reality, it was the same with him as it is with all not very rich people who wish to imitate the rich, and, as a matter of fact, only imitate one another: silk stuffs, black wood, flowers, carpets, and bronzes, dark and shining, all that sort of thing which all persons of a certain class do in order to resemble all other persons of the same class. And with him, too, it was all so much alike that there was absolutely nothing to attract attention, yet to him it all seemed something especial. When he met his family at the railway station, he conducted them to his illuminated, ready prepared quarters, and a lackey in a white choker opened the door leading into the flower-bedizened vestibule, and then they proceeded into the reception room and the cabinet, and ah'd and oh'd with satisfaction; and he felt very happy, and guided them everywhere, imbibed their praises, and was radiant with satisfaction. That same evening, after tea, Praskov'ya Thedorovna asked him, among other things, how he had come to fall, and he laughed and explained by pantomime how he had come flying through the air, and had frightened the curtain-hanger.
"I have not been a gymnast for nothing, anyone
