The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky

DOCTOR Christian Ivanovich Rutenspitz, Physician and Surgeon, a hale and hearty, although now elderly, man endowed with bushy greying eyebrows and whiskers, with an expressive glittering eye which might have seemed enough in itself to drive away any kind of disease, and finally with the ribbon of an important Order, sat this morning alone in his surgery, in his comfortable armchair, drinking coffee brought to him by his wife's own hand, smoking a cigar, and from time to time writing prescriptions for his patients. Having prescribed the last bottle for a little old man with haemorrhoids, and seen him out by the side door, Christian Ivanovich sat down to await his next patient. Mr Golyadkin entered.

Christian Ivanovich had apparently neither in the least expected to see Mr Golyadkin before him, nor wished to do so, because he was for a moment acutely embarrassed and involuntarily revealed a strange and one might almost say displeased expression. Mr Golyadkin for his part, since he somehow seemed almost always to choose the wrong moment and grew flustered whenever he had to approach somebody direct about his own little affairs, and since he had not thought out his opening sentence, always a stumbling-block to him on such occasions, was even more acutely embarrassed, muttered what appeared to be some sort of apology, and not knowing what to do next took a chair and sat down. But remembering that he had done this without being invited, he became conscious of his lack of manners and immediately hastened to correct his ignorance of the world and breach of good form by getting to his feet again. Then recollecting himself and dimly apprehending that he had now committed two solecisms in a row, he instantly decided on a third, that is he embarked on an apology, muttered a few words, smiled, blushed, grew confused, lapsed into eloquent silence, and finally sat down and remained sitting, while protecting himself against all contingencies with the same challenging stare that possessed such exceptional powers of mentally annihilating and reducing to ashes all the enemies of Mr Golyadkin. The stare, moreover, fully conveyed Mr Golyadkin's independence, that is, it stated clearly that Mr Golyadkin didn't care, he was his own master, like anybody else, and his life was his own. Christian Ivanovich coughed, cleared his throat, evidently in token of agreement and approval of all this, and fixed a questioning inspectorial look on Mr Golyadkin.