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 th