From the man’s voice and movements it was evident that he was in an extremely agitated state. As if frightened by a fire or a rabid dog, he could barely control his rapid breathing and spoke quickly, in a trembling voice, and something unfeignedly candid, something childishly fearful sounded in his speech. Like all frightened and stunned people, he spoke in short, abrupt sentences and used many unnecessary, totally irrelevant words.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t find you at home,” he went on. “My soul suffered so much on the way here…Get dressed and let’s go, for God’s sake…It happened like this. Papchinsky, Alexander Semyonovich, whom you know, comes to see me…We talked…then sat down to tea; suddenly my wife cries out, puts her hand to her heart, and falls back in her chair. We carried her to her bed and…I rubbed her temples with sal-ammoniac, sprinkled her with water…she lay as if dead…I’m afraid it’s an aneurysm…Let’s go…Her father also died of an aneurysm…”
Kirilov listened and said nothing, as if he did not understand Russian.
When Abogin again referred to Papchinsky and to his wife’s father and again began searching for his hand in the darkness, the doctor shook his head and said, apathetically drawing out each word:
“Forgive me, I can’t go…Five minutes ago…my son died…”
“Can it be?” Abogin whispered, taking a step back. “My God, what an evil hour I’ve hit on! An amazingly unfortunate day…amazingly! What a coincidence…as if on purpose!”
Abogin took hold of the door handle and hung his head, pondering. He evidently hesitated, not knowing what to do: to leave or to go on entreating the doctor.
“Listen,” he said heatedly, catching Kirilov by the sleeve, “I understand your position perfectly! God knows, I’m ashamed to be trying to hold your attention at such a moment, but what can I do? Judge for yourself, who can I go to? Besides you, there’s no other doctor here. Come, for God’s sake! I’m not asking for myself…It’s not me who’s sick!”
Silence ensued. Kirilov turned his back to Abogin, stood for a moment, and slowly went from the front hall to the drawing room. Judging by his uncertain, mechanical gait, by the attention with which, on coming to the drawing room, he straightened the fringed lampshade on an unlit lamp and glanced into a fat book lying on the table, in those moments he had neither intentions nor wishes, was not thinking about anything, and probably no longer remembered that a stranger was standing in his front hall. The darkness and quietness of the room apparently intensified his derangement. Going from the drawing room to his study, he raised his right foot higher than necessary, feeling with his hands for the door frames, and all the while there was a sense of some sort of perplexity in his whole figure, as if he found himself in unfamiliar quarters or had gotten drunk for the first time in his life and now yielded with perplexity to this new sensation. A wide strip of light stretched across the bookcases on one wall of the study; along with the heavy, stale smell of carbolic acid and ether, this light came from the slightly ajar door that led from the study to the bedroom…The doctor sank into the armchair in front of the desk; for a moment he gazed sleepily at the lighted books, then got up and went to the bedroom.
Here, in the bedroom, a dead silence reigned. Everything to the smallest detail spoke of the recently endured storm, of fatigue, and everything was resting. A candle, which stood on a stool amid a dense crowd of vials, boxes, and jars, and a big lamp on a chest of drawers brightly lit the whole room. On the bed just by the window lay a boy with open eyes and an astonished look on his face. He did not move, but his open eyes seemed to be growing darker and sinking into his skull with every moment. His mother was kneeling beside the bed, her arms lying on his body, her face hidden in the folds of the sheets. Like the boy, she was motionless, but how much living movement could be felt in the curves of her body and in her arms! She pressed herself to the bed with all her being, with force and greed, as if fearing to disturb the calm and comfortable pose she had finally found for her weary body. Blankets, rags, basins, puddles on the floor, brushes and spoons scattered everywhere, a white bottle with lime water, the very air, stifling and heavy—it was all still and seemed immersed in calm.
The doctor stopped beside his wife, put his hands into his trouser pockets, and, inclining his head to the side, turned his gaze to his son. His face expressed indifference, and only by the drops glistening on his beard could one tell that he had recently wept.
That repulsive horror which people think about when speaking of death was absent from the room. In the general stupor, the mother’s pose, the indifference of the doctor’s face, lay something attractive, touching the heart, precisely that fine, barely perceptible beauty of human grief, which people will not soon learn to understand and describe, and which only music seems able to convey. Beauty could also be felt in the somber silence; Kirilov and his wife were quiet, they did not weep, as if, besides the heaviness of the loss, they were also conscious of the lyrical side of their situation: as once, in its time, their youth had gone, so now, together with this boy, their right to have children had gone forever into eternity! The doctor was forty-four, he was already gray-haired and looked like an old man; his faded and ailing wife was thirty-five. Andrei had been not just their only one, but also their last.
In contrast to his wife, the doctor belonged by nature to those who, at a time of inner pain, feel the need to move. Having stood by his wife for some five minutes, he walked, raising his right foot high, from the bedroom to a small room, half of which was taken up by a big, wide couch; from there he went on to the kitchen. After lingering briefly around the stove and the cook’s bed, he bent down and passed through a small door into the front hall.
Here he again saw the white scarf and the pale face.
“At last!” Abogin sighed, taking hold of the door handle. “Let’s go, please!”
The doctor gave a start, looked at him, and remembered…
“Listen, I already told you that I can’t go!” he said, rousing himself. “How strange!”
“Doctor, I’m not a block of wood, I understand your situation very well…I feel for you!” Abogin said in a pleading voice, putting his hand to his scarf. “But I’m not asking for myself…My wife is dying! If you had heard that scream, seen her face, you’d understand my insistence! My God, I was already thinking you went to get dressed! Doctor, time is precious! Let’s go, I beg you!”
“I cannot go!” Kirilov said in a measured tone and stepped into the drawing room.
Abogin followed him and grabbed him by the sleeve.
“You’re in grief, I understand that, but I’m not inviting you to treat a toothache or give a diagnosis, but to save a human life!” he went on pleading like a beggar. “That life is higher than any personal grief! So, I’m asking for courage, a brave deed! For the love of humanity!”
“The love of humanity is a stick with two ends,” Kirilov said irritably. “I beg you in the name of that same love of humanity not to take me away. And it’s so strange, by God! I can barely keep my feet, and you frighten me with the love of humanity! I’m good for nothing now…I won’t go with you for anything, and who will I leave my wife with? No, no…”
Kirilov waved his hands and took several steps back.
“And…and don’t ask!” he went on in fright. “Excuse me…According to volume thirteen of the law, it’s my duty to go, and you have the right to drag me by the scruff of the neck…All right, drag me, but…I’m no good…I can’t even speak…Excuse me…”
“There’s no point talking to me in that tone, doctor!” Abogin said, again taking the doctor by the sleeve. “Never mind about volume thirteen! I have no right to force your will. If you want to come, come; if you don’t—God help you, but I’m not appealing to your will, but to your feelings. A young woman is dying! You told me your son just died—who can understand my horror if not you?”