As soon as he let them go he felt worse.
"Gerasim," he said to him, " have you got employment now ? "
"No, none at all," said Gerasim, who had been learning from the townspeople how to speak with gentlemen.
"What else have you got to do besides this?"
"What have I got to do? I have done everything now, I have only got to chop wood for to-morrow."
"Then go on holding my feet up a little higher—can you?"
"Why of course." Gerasim raised the feet higher. And it seemed to Ivan Il'ich as if in this position he didn't feel the pain at all.
"And how about that wood, eh?"
"Pray do not be uneasy about it, we'll manage."
Ivan Il'ich ordered Gerasim to sit down and hold his feet, and he talked to him. And it was a strange thing, but it seemed to him that he was better so long as Gerasim held his feet
From henceforth Ivan Il'ich used sometimes to call Gerasim, and get him to hold his feet on his shoulders, and loved to talk with him. Gerasim did this easily, willingly, simply, and so good-naturedly that Ivan Il'ich was touched by it. Health, strength, fulness of life in all other people offended Ivan Il'ich, but strength and fulness of life in Gerasim did not fret but soothed Ivan Il'ich.
The chief torment of Ivan Il'ich was falsehood, the falsehood adopted in some way or other by them all, that he was only ill and not dying, and that all he had to do was to keep quiet and g
