Question

The awful, terrible act of his dying was, he could see, reduced by those about him to the level of a casual, unpleasant, and almost indecorous incident (as if someone entered a drawing room defusing an unpleasant odour) and this was done by that very decorum which he had served all his life long. He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to grasp his position. Only Gerasim recognized it and pitied him. And so Ivan Ilyich felt at ease only with him. He felt comforted when Gerasim supported his legs (sometimes all night long) and refused to go to bed, saying: "Don't you worry, Ivan Ilyich. I'll get sleep enough later on," or when he suddenly became familiar and exclaimed: "If you weren't sick it would be another matter, but as it is, why should I grudge a little trouble?" Gerasim alone did not lie; everything showed that he alone understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them, but simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled master. Once when Ivan Ilyich was sending him away he even said straight out: "We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?"—expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came.

A.
The peasant class in nineteenth-century Russia was full of honest and compassionate people.
B.
Educated professionals gained influence in Russian society in the nineteenth century.
C.
In the nineteenth century, middle-class Russians were rich and well-educated.
D.
Peasants more readily accepted unpleasant facts of life, while the middle class tried to deny them.

Answer 1

The correct answer is D. Peasants more readily accepted unpleasant facts of life, while the middle class tried to deny them.

Indeed, peasants in Czarist Russian were barely above slavery and suffered greatly a life of poverty, exploitation and deprivation. The reason why Gerasim is able to feel compassion for Ivan is that as a peasant he has lived all his life in these dark conditions and thus can feel empathy and compassion for Ivan, who finally realizes how superficial and fake his life has been until now; disconnected from the grim realities of the human condition, and oblivious to the suffering of most of his fellow countrymen.