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 ow