“Hamlet once regretted that the Lord of heaven and earth had forbidden the sin of suicide; in like manner I regret that fate has made me a doctor.… I regret it deeply!”
“I fear that, in my turn, I must regret that I am an examining magistrate,” I said. “If the Count has not made a mistake and confounded murder with suicide, and if Olga has really been murdered, my poor nerves will have much to suffer!”
“You can refuse this affair!”
I looked inquiringly at Pavel Ivanovich, but, of course, owing to the darkness, I could see nothing.… How could he know that I could refuse this affair? I was Olga's lover, but who knew it, with the exception of Olga herself and perhaps also Pshekhotsky, who had favoured me once with applause?
“Why do you think I can refuse?” I asked “Screw.”
“You could fall ill, or tender your resignation. All this is not dishonourable, because there is somebody to take your place. A doctor is placed in quite other conditions.”
“Only that?” I thought.
Our carriage, after a long, wearisome drive over the clayey roads stopped at last before the porch. Two windows just above the porch were brightly illuminated Through the one on the right side, which was in Olga's room, a dim light issued. All the other windows looked like black spots. On the stairs we met the Scops-Owl. She looked at me with her piercing little eyes, and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled in an evil, mocking smile.
Her eyes seemed to say “You'll have a great surprise!”
She probably thought we had come to carouse, and we did not know there was grief in the house.