n.

When Abogin mentioned again Paptchinsky and his wife's father and
once more began feeling in the dark for his hand the doctor shook
his head and said apathetically, dragging out each word:

"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