Short Stories by Chekhov
figure one could hardly believe that this man had a wife, that he was
capable of weeping over his child. Abogin presented a very different
appearance. He was a thick-set, sturdy-looking, fair man with a big head
and large, soft features; he was elegantly dressed in the very latest
fashion. In his carriage, his closely buttoned coat, his long hair, and
his face there was a suggestion of something generous, leonine; he
walked with his head erect and his chest squared, he spoke in an
agreeable baritone, and there was a shade of refined almost feminine
elegance in the manner in which he took off his scarf and smoothed his
hair. Even his paleness and the childlike terror with which he looked up
at the stairs as he took off his coat did not detract from his dignity
nor diminish the air of sleekness, health, and aplomb which
characterized his whole figure.
"There is nobody and no sound," he said going up the stairs. "There is
no commotion. God grant all is well."
He led the doctor through the hall into a big drawing-room where there
was a black piano and a chandelier in a white cover; from there they
both went into a very snug, pretty little drawing-room full of an
agreeable, rosy twilight.
"Well, sit down here, doctor, and I . . . will be back directly. I will
go and have a look and prepare them."
Kirilov was left alone. The luxury of the drawing-room, the agreeably
subdued light and his own presence in the stranger's unfamiliar house,
which had something of the character of an adventure, did not apparently
affect him. He sat in a low chair and scrutinized his hands, which were
burnt with carbolic. He only caught a passing glimpse of the bright red
lamp-shade and the violoncello case, and glancing in the direction where
the clock was ticking he noticed a stuffed wolf as substantial and
sleek-looking as Abogin himself.
It was quiet. . . . Somewhere far away in the adjoining rooms someone
uttered a loud exclamation:
"Ah!" There was a clang of a glass door, probably of a cupboard, and
again all was still. After waiting five minutes Kirilov left off
scrutinizing his hands and raised his eyes to the door by which Abogin
had vanished.
In the doorway stood Abogin, but he was not the same as when he had gone
out. The look of sleekness and refined elegance had disappeared --his
face, his hands, his attitude were contorted by a revolting expression
of something between horror and agonizing physical pain. His nose, his
lips, his moustache, all his features were moving and seemed trying to
tear themselves from his face, his eyes looked as though they were
laughing with agony. . . .
Abogin took a heavy stride into the drawing-room, bent forward, moaned,
and shook his fists.
"She has deceived me," he cried, with a strong emphasis on the second
syllable of the verb. "Deceived me, gone away. She fell ill and sent me
for the doctor only to run away with that clown Paptchinsky! My God!"
Abogin took a heavy step towards the doctor, held out his soft white
fists in his face, and shaking them went on yelling:
"Gone away! Deceived me! But why this deception? My God! My God! What
need of this dirty, scoundrelly trick, this diabolical, snakish farce?
What have I done to her? Gone away!"
Tears gushed from his eyes. He turned on one foot and began pacing up
and down the drawing-room. Now in his short coat, his fashionable narrow
trousers which made his legs look disproportionately slim, with his big
head and long mane he was extremely like a lion. A gleam of curiosity
came into the apathetic face of the doctor. He got up and looked at
Abogin.
"Excuse me, where is the patient?" he said.
"The patient! The patient!" cried Abogin, laughing, crying, and still
brandishing his fists. "She is not ill, but accursed! The baseness! The
vileness! The devil himself could not have imagined anything more
loathsome! She sent me off that she might run away with a buffoon, a
dull-witted clown, an Alphonse! Oh God, better she had died! I cannot
bear it! I cannot bear it!"
The doctor drew himself up. His eyes blinked and filled with tears, his
narrow beard began moving to right and to left together with his jaw.
"Allow me to ask what's the meaning of this?" he asked, looking round
him with curiosity. "My child is dead, my wife is in grief alone in the
whole house. . . . I myself can scarcely stand up, I have not slept for
three nights. . . . And here I am forced to play a part in some vulgar
farce, to play the part of a stage property! I don't . . . don't
understand it!"
Abogin unclenched one fist, flung a crumpled note on the floor, and
stamped on it as though it were an insect he wanted to crush.
"And I didn't see, didn't understand," he said through his clenched
teeth, brandishing one fist before his face with an expression as though
some one had trodden on his corns. "I did not notice that he came every
day! I did not notice that he came today in a closed carriage! What did
he come in a closed carriage for? And I did not see it! Noodle!"
"I don't understand . . ." muttered the doctor. "Why, what's the meaning
of it? Why, it's an outrage on personal dignity, a mockery of human
suffering! It's incredible. . . . It's the first time in my life I have
had such an experience!"
With the dull surprise of a man who has only just realized that he has
been bitterly insulted the doctor shrugged his shoulders, flung wide his
arms, and not knowing what to do or to say sank helplessly into a chair.
"If you have ceased to love me and love another--so be it; but why this
deceit, why this vulgar, treacherous trick?" Abogin said in a tearful
voice. "What is the object of it? And what is there to justify it? And
what have I done to you? Listen, doctor," he said hotly, going up to
Kirilov. "You have been the involuntary witness of my misfortune and I
am not going to conceal the truth from you. I swear that I loved the
woman, loved her devotedly, like a slave! I have sacrificed everything
for her; I have quarrelled with my own people, I have given up the
service and music, I have forgiven her what I could not have forgiven my
own mother or sister . . . I have never looked askance at her. . . . I
have never gainsaid her in anything. Why this deception? I do not demand
love, but why this loathsome duplicity? If she did not love me, why did
she not say so openly, honestly, especially as she knows my views on the
subject? . . ."
With tears in his eyes, trembling all over, Abogin opened his heart to
the doctor with perfect sincerity. He spoke warmly, pressing both hands
on his heart, exposing the secrets of his private life without the
faintest hesitation, and even seemed to be glad that at last these
secrets were no longer pent up in his breast. If he had talked in this
way for an hour or two, and opened his heart, he would undoubtedly have
felt better. Who knows, if the doctor had listened to him and had
sympathized with him like a friend, he might perhaps, as often happens,
have reconciled himself to his trouble without protest, without doing
anything needless and absurd. . . . But what happened was quite
different. While Abogin was speaking the outraged doctor perceptibly
changed. The indifference and wonder on his face gradually gave way to
an expression of bitter resentment, indignation, and anger. The features
of his face became even harsher, coarser, and more unpleasant. When
Abogin held out before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a
handsome face as cold and expressionless as a nun's and asked him
whether, looking at that face, one could conceive that it was capable of
duplicity, the doctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said,
rudely rapping out each word:
"What are you telling me all this for? I have no desire to hear it! I
have no desire to!" he shouted and brought his fist down on the table.
"I don't want your vulgar secrets! Damnation take them! Don't dare to
tell me of such vulgar doings! Do you consider that I have not been
insulted enough already? That I am a flunkey whom you can insult without
restraint? Is that it?"
Abogin staggered back from Kirilov and stared at him in amazement.
"Why did you bring me here?" the doctor went on, his beard quivering.
"If you are so puffed up with good living that you go and get married
and then act a farce like this, how do I come in? What have I to do with
your love affairs? Leave me in peace! Go on squeezing money out of the
poor in your gentlemanly way. Make a display of humane ideas, play (the
doctor looked sideways at the violoncello case) play the bassoon and the
trombone, grow as fat as capons, but don't dare to insult personal
dignity! If you cannot respect it, you might at least spare it your
attention!"
"Excuse me, what does all this mean?" Abogin asked, flushing red.
"It means that it's base and low to play with people like this! I am a
doctor; you look upon doctors and people generally who work and don't
stink of perfume and prostitution as your menials and mauvais ton; well,
you may look upon them so, but no one has given you the right to treat a
man who is suffering as a stage property!"
"How dare you say that to me!" Abogin said quietly, and his face began
working again, and this time unmistakably from anger.
"No, how dared you, knowing of my sorrow, bring me here to listen to
these vulgarities!" shouted the doctor, and he again banged on the table
with his fist. "Who has given you the right to make a mockery of another
man's sorrow?"
"You have taken leave of your senses," shouted Abogin. "It is
ungenerous. I am intensely unhappy myself and . . . and . . ."
"Unhappy!" said the doctor, with a smile of contempt. "Don't utter that
word, it does not concern you. The spendthrift who cannot raise a loan
calls himself unhappy, too. The capon, sluggish from over-feeding, is
unhappy, too. Worthless people!"
"Sir, you forget yourself," shrieked Abogin. "For saying things like
that . . . people are thrashed! Do you understand?"
Abogin hurriedly felt in his side pocket, pulled out a pocket-book, and
extracting two notes flung them on the table.
"Here is the fee for your visit," he said, his nostrils dilating. "You
are paid."
"How dare you offer me money?" shouted the doctor and he brushed the
notes off the table on to the floor. "An insult cannot be paid for in
money!"
Abogin and the doctor stood face to face, and in their wrath continued
flinging undeserved insults at each other. I believe that never in their
lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that was unjust,
cruel, and absurd. The egoism of the unhappy was conspicuous in both.
The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of
understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people
together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people
should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice
and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.
"Kindly let me go home!" shouted the doctor, breathing hard.
Abogin rang the bell sharply. When no one came to answer the bell he
rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor; it fell on the
carpet with a muffled sound, and uttered a plaintive note as though at
the point of death. A footman came in.
"Where have you been hiding yourself, the devil take you?" His master
flew at him, clenching his fists. "Where were you just now? Go and tell
them to bring the victoria round for this gentleman, and order the
closed carriage to be got ready for me. Stay," he cried as the footman
turned to go out. "I won't have a single traitor in the house by to-
morrow! Away with you all! I will engage fresh servants! Reptiles!"
Abogin and the doctor remained in silence waiting for the carriage. The