abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.… ‛Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible.… It’s impossible! But here it is. How is this? How is one to understand it?’3 How indeed is one to understand death? It is useless to continue to put the question in such a form, as though death itself