when i reached the university and found myself through force of habit outside the department of medicine , i stood alone in the gusting wind and watched the snow arc past me like a storm of eyes -- brilliant eyes , compelling eyes , glinting in the lamplight -- and i knew that i would learn to serve the need right there , with all the tools a scholarship had offered : scalpels for dissection , scalpels for destruction , scalpels like a row of gleaming viper fangs .