Lives and Deaths: Essential Stories

The novella is difficult to read, and difficult to translate - for that requires a much slower, more careful reading - but it is impossible to forget. However one understands the judgement meted out to Ivan Ilyich, and regardless of whether one agrees with it or rebels against it, one is changed forever by the trial.

And he grew angry at the misfortune or at the people who were causing him trouble, who were killing him, and he could feel that the anger itself was killing him but he could not restrain it. It seems it should have been clear to him that his exasperation at circumstances and people aggravated his illness, and that he should therefore ignore all these unpleasant incidents, but his mind came to a wholly different conclusion: he said he needed peace, kept a close eye on anything that might disturb that peace and grew irritated at the slightest disturbance. His situation was made worse by the fact that he read medical books and consulted doctors. The deterioration of his condition was so gradual that he could deceive himself by comparing one day to another - there was hardly any difference. But when he consulted doctors, it seemed to him that he was indeed getting worse, and rather quickly too. Yet he consulted them constantly.