"Excuse me, I cannot come . . . my son died . . . five minutes ago!"
"Is it possible!" whispered Abogin, stepping back a pace. "My God, at what an unlucky
moment I have come! A wonderfully unhappy day . . . wonderfully. What a coincidence. . . .
It's as though it were on purpose!"
Abogin took hold of the door-handle and bowed his head. He was evidently hesitating and
did not know what to do -- whether to go away or to continue entreating the doctor.
"Listen," he said fervently, catching hold of Kirilov's sleeve. "I well understand your
position! God is my witness that I am ashamed of attempting at such a moment to intrude
on your attention, but what am I to do? Only think, to whom can I go? There is no other
doctor here, you know. For God's sake come! I am not asking you for myself. . . . I am not
the patient!"
A silence followed. Kirilov turned his back on Abogin, stood still a moment, and slowly
walked into the drawing-room. Judging from his unsteady, mechanical step, from the
attention with which he set straight the fluffy shade on the unlighted lamp in the drawing-
room and glanced into a thick book lying on the table, at that instant he had no intention, no
desire, was thinking of nothing and most likely did not remember that there was a stranger
in the entry. The twilight and stillness of the drawing-room seemed to increase his
numbness. Going out of the drawing-room into his study he raised his right foot higher than
was necessary, and felt for the doorposts with his hands, and as he did so there was an air of
perplexity about his whole figure as though he were in somebody else's house, or were
drunk for the first time in his life and were now abandoning himself with surprise to the
new sensation. A broad streak of light stretched across the bookcase on one wall of the
study; this light came together with the close, heavy smell of carbolic and ether from the
door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open. . . . The doctor sank into a low chair
in front of the table; for a minute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the light
on them, then got up and went into the bedroom.
Here in the bedroom reigned a dead silence. Everything to the smallest detail was eloquent
of the storm that had been passed through, of exhaustion, and everything was at rest. A
candle standing among a crowd of bottles, boxes, and pots on a stool and a big lamp on the
chest of drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room. On the bed under the window lay a
boy with open eyes and a look of wonder on his face. He did not move, but his open eyes
seemed every moment growing darker and sinking further into his head. The mother was
kneeling by the bed with her arms on his body and her head hidden in the bedclothes. Like
the child, she did not stir; but what throbbing life was suggested in the curves of her body
and in her arms! She leaned against the bed with all her being, pressing against it greedily
with all her might, as though she were afraid of disturbing the peaceful and comfortable
attitude she had found at last for her exhausted body. The bedclothes, the rags and bowls,
the splashes of water on the floor, the little paint-brushes and spoons thrown down here and
there, the white bottle of lime water, the very air, heavy and stifling -- were all hushed and
seemed plunged in repose.
The doctor stopped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, and slanting his
head on one side fixed his eyes on his son. His face bore an expression of indifference, and
only from the drops that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had just been crying.