[Quiet Man Cometh]

Doctor Glas - Hjalmar Söderberg

"Who hasn't heard the old conundrum, so often debated when two or three poor devils are sitting round a cafe table: If, by pressing a button in the wall, or by a mere act of will, you could murder a Chinese mandarin and inherit his riches—would you do it? This problem I've never bothered my head to find an answer to, perhaps because I've never known the cruel misery of being really and truly poor. But if, by pressing a button in the wall, I could kill that clergyman, I do believe I should do it."

One of the two books that kicked off my interest in Modernist literature. The passage sets the character well for the rest of the book. I'm fond of it, or maybe I just have a thing for epistolary novels.