«It is useless, doctor, for you to speak to me in that tone,» said Abogin, again taking Kirilov’s arm. «The devil take your Thirteenth Volume!… To do violence to your will I have no right. If you will, come; if you don’t, then God be with you; but it is not to your will that I appeal, but to your heart!… A young woman is at the point of death! This moment your own son has died, and who if not you should understand my terror?»
Abogin’s voice trembled with agitation; in tremble and in tone was something more persuasive than in the words. He was certainly sincere; but it was remarkable that no matter how well chosen his phrases, they seemed to come from him stilted, soulless, inappropriately ornate, to such an extent that they seemed an insult to the atmosphere of the doctor’s house and to his own dying wife. He felt this himself, and therefore, fearing to be misunderstood, he tried with all his force to make his voice sound soft and tender, so as to win if not with words at least by sincerity of tone. In general, phrases, however beautiful and profound, act only on those who are indifferent, and seldom satisfy the happy or unhappy; it is for this reason that the most touching expression of joy or sorrow is always silence; sweethearts understand one another best when they are silent; and a burning passionate eulogy spoken above a grave touches only the strangers present, and seems to widow and child inexpressive and cold.
Kirilov stood still and said nothing. When Abogin used some more phrases about the high vocation of a physician, self-sacrifice, and so on, the doctor asked gloomily:
«Is it far?»
«Something between thirteen and fourteen versts. I have excellent horses. I give you my word of honour to bring you there and back in an hour. In a single hour!»
The last words aided on the doctor more powerfully than the references to humanity and the vocation of a doctor. He thought for a moment and said, with a sigh:
«All right…. I will go.»
With a rapid, steady gait he went into his study, and after a moment’s delay returned with a long overcoat. Moving nervously beside him, shuffling his feet, and overjoyed, Abogin helped him into his coat. Together they left the house.
It was dark outside, but not so dark as in the anteroom. In the darkness was clearly defined the outline of the tall, stooping doctor, with his long, narrow beard and eagle nose. As for Abogin, in addition to his pale face the doctor could now distinguish a big head, and a little student’s cap barely covering the crown. The white muffler gleamed only in front; behind, it was hidden under long hair.
«Believe me, I appreciate your generosity,» he muttered, seating the doctor in the calêche. «We will get there in no time. Listen, Luka, old man, drive as hard as you can! Quick!»
The coachman drove rapidly. First they flew past a row of ugly buildings, with a great open yard; everywhere around it was dark, but from a window a bright light glimmered through the palisade, and three windows in the upper story of the great block seemed paler than the air. After that they drove through intense darkness. There was a smell of mushroom dampness, and a lisping of trees; ravens awakened by the noise of the calêche stirred in the foliage, and raised a frightened, complaining cry, as if they knew that Kirilov’s son was dead, and that Abogin’s wife was dying. They flashed past single trees, past a coppice; a pond, crossed with great black shadows, scintillated—and the calêche rolled across a level plain. The cry of the ravens was heard indistinctly far behind, and then ceased entirely.
For nearly the whole way Abogin and Kirilov were silent. Only once, Abogin sighed and exclaimed:
«A frightful business! A man never so loves those who are near to him as when he is in danger of losing them.»
And when the calêche slowly crossed the river, Kirilov started suddenly as if he were frightened by the plash of the water, and moved.
«Listen! Let me go for a moment,» he said wearily. «I will come again. I must send a feldscher to my wife. She is alone!»
Abogin did not answer. The calêche, swaying and banging over the stones, crossed a sandy bank, and rolled onward. Kirilov, wrapped in weariness, looked around him. Behind, in the scanty starlight, gleamed the road; and the willows by the river bank vanished in the darkness. To the right stretched a plain, flat and interminable as heaven; and far in the distance, no doubt on some sodden marsh, gleamed will-of-the-wisps. On the left, running parallel to the road, stretched a hillock, shaggy with a small shrubbery, and over the hill hung immovably a great half-moon, rosy, half muffled in the mist and fringed with light clouds, which, it seemed, watched it on every side, that it might not escape.
On all sides Nature exhaled something hopeless and sickly; the earth, like a fallen woman sitting in her dark chamber and trying to forget the past, seemed tormented with remembrances of spring and summer, and waited in apathy the inevitable winter. Everywhere the world seemed a dark, unfathomable deep, an icy pit from which there was no escape either for Kirilov or for Abogin or for the red half-moon….
The nearer to its goal whirled the calêche, the more impatient seemed Abogin. He shifted, jumped up, and looked over the coachman’s shoulder. And when at last the carriage stopped before steps handsomely covered with striped drugget, he looked up at the lighted windows of the second story, and panted audibly.
«If anything happens … I will never survive it,» he said, entering the hall with Kirilov, and rubbing his hands in agitation. But after listening a moment, he added, «There is no confusion … things must be going well.»
In the hall were neither voices nor footsteps, and the whole house, notwithstanding its brilliant lights, seemed asleep. Only now, for the first time, the doctor and Abogin, after their sojourn in darkness, could see one another plainly. Kirilov was tall, round-shouldered, and ugly, and was carelessly dressed. His thick, almost negro, lips, his eagle nose, and his withered, indifferent glance, expressed something cutting, unkindly, and rude. His uncombed hair, his sunken temples, the premature grey in the long, narrow beard, through which appeared his chin, the pale grey of his skin, and his careless, angular manners, all reflected a career of need endured, of misfortune, of weariness with life and with men. Judging by his dry figure, no one would ever believe that this man had a wife, and that he had wept over his child.
Abogin was a contrast. He was a thick-set, solid blond, with a big head, with heavy but soft features; and he was dressed elegantly and fashionably. From his carriage, from his closely-buttoned frock-coat, from his mane of hair, and from his face, flowed something noble and leonine; he walked with his head erect and his chest expanded, he spoke in an agreeable baritone, and the way in which he took off his muffler and smoothed his hair breathed a delicate, feminine elegance. Even his pallor, and the childish terror with which, while taking off his coat, he looked up the staircase, did not detract from his dignity, or diminish the satiety, health, and aplomb which his whole figure breathed.
«There is no one about … I can hear nothing,» he said, going upstairs. «There is no confusion…. God is merciful!»
He led the doctor through the hall into a great drawing-room, with a black piano, and lustres in white covers. From this they went into a small, cosy, and well-furnished dining-room, full of a pleasant, rosy twilight.
«Wait a moment,» said Abogin, «I shall be back immediately. I will look around and tell them you are here….»
Kirilov remained alone. The luxury of the room, the pleasant twilight, and even his presence in the unknown house of a stranger, which had the character of an adventure, apparently did not affect him. He lay back in the armchair and examined his hands, burnt with carbolic acid. Only faintly could he see the bright red lamp shade and a violoncello case. But looking at the other side of the room, where ticked a clock, he noticed a stuffed wolf, as solid and sated as Abogin himself.
Not a sound…. Then in a distant room someone loudly ejaculated «Ah!»; a glass door, probably the door of a wardrobe, closed … and again all was silent. After waiting a moment Kirilov ceased to examine his hands, and raised his eyes upon the door through which Abogin had gone.
On the threshold stood Abogin. But it was not the Abogin who had left the room. The expression of satiety, the delicate elegance had vanished; his face, his figure, his pose were contorted by a repulsive expression not quite of terror, not quite of physical pain. His nose, his lips, his moustaches, all his features twitched; it seemed they wished to tear themselves off his face; and his eyes were transfigured as if from torture.
Abogin walked heavily into the middle of the room, bent himself in two, groaned, and shook his fists. «Deceived!» he shouted, with a strong hissing accentuation of the second syllable. «Cheated! Gone! Got ill, and sent for a doctor, only to fly with that buffoon Papchinsky!
