Abogin walked heavily up to the doctor, stretched up to his face his white, soft fists, and, shaking them, continued in a howl:
«Gone! Deceived! But why this extra lie? My God! My God! But why this filthy swindler’s trick, this devilish reptile play? What have I ever done? Gone!»
The tears burst from his eyes. He turned on one foot and walked up and down the room. And now in his short coat, in the narrow, fashionable trousers, which made his legs seem too thin for his body, with his great head and mane, he still more closely resembled a lion. On the doctor’s indifferent face appeared curiosity. He rose and looked at Abogin.
«Be so good as to tell me … where is the patient?»
«Patient! Patient!» cried Abogin, with a laugh, a sob, and a shaking of his fists. «This is no sick woman, but a woman accursed! Meanness, baseness, lower than Satan himself could have conceived! Sent for a doctor, to fly with him—to fly with that buffoon, that clown, that Alphonse. Oh, God, better a thousand times that she had died! I cannot bear it…. I cannot bear it!»
The doctor drew himself up. His eyes blinked and filled with team, his narrow beard moved to the right and to the left in accord with the movement of his jaws.
«Be so good as to inform me what is the meaning of this?» he asked, looking around him in curiosity. «My child lies dead, my wife in despair is left alone in a great house. I myself can hardly stand on my feet, for three nights I have not slept, and what is this? am brought here to play in some trivial comedy, to take the part of a property-man…. I don’t understand it!»
Abogin opened one of his fists, flung upon the floor a crumpled paper, and trod on it as upon an insect which he wished to crush.
«And I never saw it! I never understood!» he said through his clenched teeth, shaking one of his fists beside his face, with an expression as if someone had trod upon a corn. «I never noticed that he rode here every day, never noticed that to-day he came in a carriage! Why in a carriage? And I never noticed! Fool!»
«I don’t understand … I really don’t understand,» stammered Kirilov. «What is the meaning of this? This is practical joking at the expense of another … it is mocking at human suffering. It is impossible. … I have never heard of such a thing!»
With the dull astonishment depicted on his face of a man who is only beginning to understand that he has been badly insulted, the doctor shrugged his shoulders, and not knowing what to say, threw himself in exhaustion into the chair.
«Got tired of me, loved another! Well, God be with them! But why this deception, why this base, this traitorous trick?» cried Abogin in a whining voice. «Why? For what? What have I done to her? Listen, doctor,» he said passionately, coming nearer to Kirilov. «You are the involuntary witness of my misfortune, and I will not conceal from you the truth. I swear to you that I loved that woman, that I loved her to adoration, that I was her slave. For her I gave up everything; I quarrelled with my parents, I threw up my career and my music, I forgave her what I could not have forgiven in my own mother or sister…. I have never said an unkind word to her…. I gave her no cause! But why this lie? I do not ask for love, but why this shameless deception P If a woman doesn’t love, then let her say so openly, honestly, all the more since she knew my views on that subject….»
With tears in his eyes, and with his body trembling all over, Abogin sincerely poured forth to the doctor his whole soul. He spoke passionately, with both hands pressed to his heart, he revealed family secrets without a moment’s hesitation; and, it seemed, was even relieved when these secrets escaped him. Had he spoken thus for an hour, for two hours, and poured out his soul, he would certainly have felt better. Who knows whether the doctor might not have listened to him, sympathised with him as a friend, and, even without protest, become reconciled to his own unhappiness…. But it happened otherwise. While Abogin spoke, the insulted doctor changed. The indifference and surprise on his face gave way little by little to an expression of bitter offence, indignation, and wrath. His features became sharper, harder, and more disagreeable. And finally when Abogin held before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a face handsome but dry and inexpressive as a nun’s, and asked him could he, looking at this photograph, imagine that she was capable of telling a lie, the doctor suddenly leaped up, averted his eyes, and said, rudely ringing out every word:
«What do you mean by talking to me like this? I don’t want to hear you! I will not listen!» He shouted and banged his fist upon the table. «What have I to do with your stupid secrets, devil take them! You dare to communicate to me these base trifles! Do you not see that I have already been insulted enough? Am I a lackey who will bear insults without retaliation?»
Abogin staggered backwards, and looked at Kirilov in amazement.
«Why did you bring me here?» continued the doctor, shaking his beard…. «If you marry filth, then storm with your filth, and play your melodramas; but what affair is that of mine? What have I to do with your romances? Leave me alone! Display your well-born meanness, show off your humane ideas, (the doctor pointed to the violoncello case) play on your double basses and trombones, get as fat as a capon, but do not dare to mock the personality of another! If you cannot respect it, then rid it of your detestable attention!»
Abogin reddened. «What does all this mean?» he asked.
«It means this: that it is base and infamous to play practical jokes on other men. I am a doctor; you regard doctors and all other working men who do not smell of scent and prostitution as your lackeys and your servants. But reflect, reflect—no one has I given you the right to make a property man of a suffering human being!»
«You dare to speak this to me?» said Abogin; and his face again twitched, this time plainly from anger.
«Yes … and you, knowing of the misery in my home, have dared to drag me here to witness this insanity,» cried the doctor, again banging his fist upon the table. «Who gave you the right to mock at human misfortune?»
«You are out of your mind,» said Abogin. «You are not generous. I also am deeply unhappy, and….»
«Unhappy!» cried Kirilov, with a contemptuous laugh. «Do not touch that word; it ill becomes you. Oafs who have no money to meet their bills also call themselves unfortunate. Geese that are stuffed with too much fat are also unhappy. Insignificant curs!»
«You forget yourself, you forget yourself!» screamed Abogin. «For words like those … people are horsewhipped. Do you hear me?»
He suddenly thrust his hand into his side pocket, took out a pocket-book, and taking two bank-notes, flung them on the table.
«There you have the money for your visit!» he said, dilating his nostrils. «You are paid!»
«Do not dare to offer money to me,» cried Kirilov, sweeping the notes on to the floor. «For insults money is not the payment.»
The two men stood face to face, and in their anger flung insults at one another. It is certain that never in their lives had they uttered so many unjust, inhuman, and ridiculous words. In each was fully expressed the egoism of the unfortunate. And men who are unfortunate, egoistical, angry, unjust, and heartless are even less than stupid men capable of understanding one another. For misfortune does not unite, but severs; and those who should be bound by community of sorrow are much more unjust and heartless than the happy and contented.
«Be so good as to send me home!» cried the doctor at last.
Abogin rang sharply. Receiving no answer he rang again, and angrily flung the bell upon the floor; it fell heavily on the carpet and emitted a plaintive and ominous sound…. A footman appeared.
«Where have you been hiding yourself? May Satan take you!» roared Abogin, rushing at him with clenched fists. «Where have you been? Go, tell them at once to give this gentleman the calêche, and get the carriage ready for me!… Stop!» he cried, when the servant turned to go. «To-morrow let none of you traitors remain in this house! The whole pack of you! I will get others! Curs!»
Awaiting their carriages, Abogin and Kirilov were silent. The first had already regained his expression of satiety and his delicate elegance. He walked up and down the room, shook his head gracefully, and apparently thought something out. His anger had not yet evaporated, but he tried to look as if he did not notice his enemy…. The doctor stood, with one hand on the edge of the table, and looked at Abogin with deep, somewhat cynical and ugly contempt—with the eyes of sorrow and misfortune when they see before them satiety and elegance.
When, after a short delay, the doctor took his seat in the calêche, his eyes retained their contemptuous look. It was dark, much darker than an hour before. The red half-moon had fallen below the hill, and the clouds that had guarded it lay in black
