Chapter 12

Arátoff went about his customary avocations, busying himself now with one, now with another; but his work did not make progress, was not a success. Suddenly he noticed that he was waiting for Kupfer, that he wanted to interrogate him, or even communicate something to him.... But Kupfer did not make his appearance. Then Arátoff got Púshkin and read Tatyána's letter and again felt convinced that that "gipsy" had not in the least grasped the meaning of the letter. But there was that jester Kupfer shouting: "A Rachel! A Viardot!" Then he went to his piano, raised the cover in an abstracted sort of way, tried to search out in his memory the melody of Tchaikóvsky's romance; but he immediately banged to the piano-lid with vexation and went to his aunt, in her own room, which was always kept very hot, and was forever redolent of mint, sage, and other medicinal herbs, and crowded with such a multitude of rugs, étagères, little benches, cushions and various articles of softly-stuffed furniture that it was difficult for an inexperienced person to turn round in it, and breathing was oppressive. Platonída Ivánovna was sitting by the window with her knitting-needles in her hand (she was knitting a scarf for Yáshenka--the thirty-eighth, by actual count, during the course of his existence!)--and was greatly surprised. Arátoff rarely entered her room, and if he needed anything he always shouted in a shrill voice from his study: "Aunt Platósha!"--But she made him sit down and, in anticipation of his first words, pricked up her ears, as she stared at him through her round spectacles with one eye, and above them with the other. She did not inquire after his health, and did not offer him tea, for she saw that he had not come for that. Arátoff hesitated for a while ... then began to talk ... to talk about his mother, about the way she had lived with his father, and how his father had made her acquaintance. He knew all this perfectly well ... but he wanted to talk precisely about that. Unluckily for him, Platósha did not know how to converse in the least; she made very brief replies, as though she suspected that Yásha had not come for that purpose.

"Certainly!"--she kept repeating hurriedly, as she plied her knitting-needles almost in an angry way. "Every one knows that thy mother was a dove ... a regular dove.... And thy father loved her as a husband should love, faithfully and honourably, to the very grave; and he never loved any other woman,"--she added, elevating her voice and removing her spectacles.

"And was she of a timid disposition?" asked Arátoff, after a short pause.

"Certainly she was. As is fitting for the female sex. The bold ones are a recent invention."

"And were there no bold ones in your time?"

"There were such even in our day ... of course there were! But who were they? Some street-walker, or shameless hussy or other. She would drag her skirts about, and fling herself hither and thither at random.... What did she care? What anxiety had she? If a young fool came along, he fell into her hands. But steady-going people despised them. Dost thou remember ever to have beheld such in our house?"

Arátoff made no reply and returned to his study. Platonída Ivánovna gazed after him, shook her head and again donned her spectacles, again set to work on her scarf ... but more than once she fell into thought and dropped her knitting-needles on her knee.

And Arátoff until nightfall kept again and again beginning, with the same vexation, the same ire as before, to think about "the gipsy," the appointed tryst, to which he certainly would not go! During the night also she worried him. He kept constantly seeing her eyes, now narrowed, now widely opened, with their importunate gaze riveted directly on him, and those impassive features with their imperious expression.

On the following morning he again kept expecting Kupfer, for some reason or other; he came near writing him a letter ... however, he did nothing ... but spent most of his time pacing to and fro in his study. Not for one instant did he even admit to himself the thought that he would go to that stupid "rendezvous" ... and at half-past four, after having swallowed his dinner in haste, he suddenly donned his overcoat and pulling his cap down on his brows, he stole out of the house without letting his aunt see him and wended his way to the Tver boulevard.

VII

Arátoff found few pedestrians on the boulevard. The weather was raw and quite cold. He strove not to think of what he was doing. He forced himself to turn his attention to all the objects he came across and pretended to assure himself that he had come out to walk precisely like the other people.... The letter of the day before was in his side-pocket, and he was uninterruptedly conscious of its presence. He walked the length of the boulevard a couple of times, darting keen glances at every feminine form which approached him, and his heart thumped, thumped violently.... He began to feel tired, and sat down on a bench. And suddenly the idea occurred to him: "Come now, what if that letter was not written by her but by some one else, by some other woman?" In point of fact, that should have made no difference to him ... and yet he was forced to admit to himself that he did not wish this. "It would be very stupid," he thought, "still more stupid than _that_!" A nervous restlessness began to take possession of him; he began to feel chilly, not outwardly but inwardly. Several times he drew out his watch from his waistcoat pocket, glanced at the face, put it back again,--and every time forgot how many minutes were lacking to five o'clock. It seemed to him as though every one who passed him stared at him in a peculiar manner, surveying him with a certain sneering surprise and curiosity. A wretched little dog ran up, sniffed at his legs and began to wag its tail. He flourished his arms angrily at it. He was most annoyed of all by a small boy from a factory in a bed-ticking jacket, who seated himself on the bench and first whistled, then scratched his head, dangling his legs, encased in huge, broken boots, the while, and staring at him from time to time. "His employer is certainly expecting him," thought Arátoff, "and here he is, the lazy dog, wasting his time idling about...."

But at that same moment it seemed to him as though some one had approached and taken up a stand close behind him ... a warm current emanated thence....

He glanced round.... It was she!

He recognised her immediately, although a thick, dark-blue veil concealed her features. He instantly sprang from the bench, and remained standing there, unable to utter a word. She also maintained silence. He felt greatly agitated ... but her agitation was as great as his: Arátoff could not help seeing even through the veil how deadly pale she grew. But she was the first to speak.

"Thank you," she began in a broken voice, "thank you for coming. I did not hope...." She turned away slightly and walked along the boulevard. Arátoff followed her.

"Perhaps you condemn me," she went on, without turning her head.--"As a matter of fact, my action is very strange.... But I have heard a great deal about you ... but no! I ... that was not the cause.... If you only knew.... I wanted to say so much to you, my God!... But how am I to do it?... How am I to do it!"

Arátoff walked by her side, but a little in the rear. He did not see her face; he saw only her hat and a part of her veil ... and her long, threadbare cloak. All his vexation against her and against himself suddenly returned to him; all the absurdity, all the awkwardness of this tryst, of these explanations between utter strangers, on a public boulevard, suddenly presented itself to him.

"I have come hither at your behest," he began in his turn, "I have come, my dear madame" (her shoulders quivered softly, she turned into a side path, and he followed her), "merely for the sake of having an explanation, of learning in consequence of what strange misunderstanding you were pleased to appeal to me, a stranger to you, who ... who only _guessed_, as you expressed it in your letter, that it was precisely you who had written to him ... because he guessed that you had tried, in the course of that literary morning to show him too much ... too much obvious attention."

Arátoff uttered the whole of this little speech in the same resonant but firm voice in which men who are still very young answer at examinations on questions for which they are well prepared.... He was indignant; he was angry.... And that wrath had loosed his tongue which was not very fluent on ordinary occasions.

She continued to advance along the path with somewhat lagging steps.... Arátoff followed her as before, and as before saw only her little old mantilla and her small hat, which was not quite new either. His vanity suffered at the thought that she must now be thinking: "All I had to do was to make a sign, and he immediately hastened to me!"

Arátoff lapsed into silence ... he expected that she would reply to him; but she did not utter a word.

"I am ready to listen to you," he began again, "and I shall even be very glad if I can be of service to you in any way ... although, I must confess, nevertheless, that I find it astonishing ... that considering my isolated life...."

But at his last words Clara suddenly turned to him and he beheld the same startled, profoundly-sorrowful visage, with the same large, bright tears in its eyes, with the same woful expression around the parted lips; and the visage was so fine thus that he involuntarily broke off short and felt within himself something akin to fright, and pity and forbearance.

"Akh, why ... why are you like this? ..." she said with irresistibly sincere and upright force--and what a touching ring there was to her voice!--"Is it possible that my appeal to you can have offended you?... Is it possible that you have understood nothing?... Ah, yes! You have not understood anything, you have not understood what I said to you. God knows what you have imagined about me, you have not even reflected what it cost me to write to you!... You have been anxious only on your own account, about your own dignity, your own peace!... But did I...." (she so tightly clenched her hands which she had raised to her lips that her fingers cracked audibly).... "As though I had made any demands upon you, as though explanations were requisite to begin with.... 'My dear madame'.... 'I even find it astonishing'.... 'If I can be of service to you'.... Akh, how foolish I have been!--I have been deceived in you, in your face!... When I saw you for the first time.... There.... There you stand.... And not one word do you utter! Have you really not a word to say?"

She had been imploring.... Her face suddenly flushed, and as suddenly assumed an evil and audacious expression,--"O Lord! how stupid this is!"--she cried suddenly, with a harsh laugh.--"How stupid our tryst is! How stupid I am! ... and you, too!... Fie!"

She made a disdainful gesture with her hand as though sweeping him out of her path, and passing around him she ran swiftly from the boulevard and disappeared.

That gesture of the hand, that insulting laugh, that final exclamation instantly restored Arátoff to his former frame of mind and stifled in him the feeling which had risen in his soul when she turned to him with tears in her eyes. Again he waxed wroth, and came near shouting after the retreating girl: "You may turn out a good actress, but why have you taken it into your head to play a comedy on me?"

With great strides he returned home, and although he continued to be indignant and to rage all the way thither, still, at the same time, athwart all these evil, hostile feelings there forced its way the memory of that wondrous face which he had beheld only for the twinkling of an eye.... He even put to himself the question: "Why did not I answer her when she demanded from me at least one word?"--"I did not have time," ... he thought.... "She did not give me a chance to utter that word.... And what would I have uttered?"

But he immediately shook his head and said, "An actress!"

And yet, at the same time, the vanity of the inexperienced, nervous youth, which had been wounded at first, now felt rather flattered at the passion which he had inspired....

"But on the other hand," he pursued his reflections, "all that is at an end of course.... I must have appeared ridiculous to her."....

This thought was disagreeable to him, and again he grew angry ... both at her ... and at himself. On reaching home he locked himself in his study. He did not wish to encounter Platósha. The kind old woman came to his door a couple of times, applied her ear to the key-hole, and merely sighed and whispered her prayer....

"It has begun!" she thought.... "And he is only five-and-twenty.... Akh, it is early, early!"

VIII

Akátoff was very much out of sorts all the following day.

"What is the matter, Yásha?" Platonída Ivánovna said to him. "Thou seemest to be tousled to-day, somehow."... In the old woman's peculiar language this quite accurately defined Arátoff's moral condition. He could not work, but even he himself did not know what he wanted. Now he was expecting Kupfer again (he suspected that it was precisely from Kupfer that Clara had obtained his address ... and who else could have "talked a great deal" about him?); again he wondered whether his acquaintance with her was to end in that way? ... again he imagined that she would write him another letter; again he asked himself whether he ought not to write her a letter, in which he might explain everything to her,---as he did not wish to leave an unpleasant impression of himself.... But, in point of fact, _what_ was he to explain?--Now he aroused in himself something very like disgust for her, for her persistence, her boldness; again that indescribably touching face presented itself to him and her irresistible voice made itself heard; and yet again he recalled her singing, her recitation--and did not know whether he was right in his wholesale condemnation.--In one word: he was a tousled man! At last he became bored with all this and decided, as the saying is, "to take it upon himself" and erase all that affair, as it undoubtedly was interfering with his avocations and disturbing his peace of mind.--He did not find it so easy to put his resolution into effect.... More than a week elapsed before he got back again into his ordinary rut. Fortunately, Kupfer did not present himself at all, any more than if he had not been in Moscow. Not long before the "affair" Arátoff had begun to busy himself with painting for photographic ends; he devoted himself to this with redoubled zeal.

Thus, imperceptibly, with a few "relapses" as the doctors express it, consisting, for example in the fact that he once came very near going to call on the Princess, two weeks ... three weeks passed ... and Arátoff became once more the Arátoff of old. Only deep down, under the surface of his life, something heavy and dark secretly accompanied him in all his comings and goings. Thus does a large fish which has just been hooked, but has not yet been drawn out, swim along the bottom of a deep river under the very boat wherein sits the fisherman with his stout rod in hand.

And lo! one day as he was skimming over some not quite fresh numbers of the _Moscow News,_ Arátoff hit upon the following correspondence:

"With great sorrow," wrote a certain local literary man from Kazán, "we insert in our theatrical chronicle the news of the sudden death of our gifted actress, Clara Mílitch, who had succeeded in the brief space of her engagement in becoming the favourite of our discriminating public. Our sorrow is all the greater because Miss Mílitch herself put an end to her young life, which held so much of promise, by means of poison. And this poisoning is all the more dreadful because the actress took the poison on the stage itself! They barely got her home, where, to universal regret, she died. Rumours are current in the town to the effect that unrequited love led her to that terrible deed."

Arátoff softly laid the newspaper on the table. To all appearances he remained perfectly composed ... but something smote him simultaneously in his breast and in his head, and then slowly diffused itself through all his members. He rose to his feet, stood for a while on one spot, and again seated himself, and again perused the letter. Then he rose once more, lay down on his bed and placing his hands under his head, he stared for a long time at the wall like one dazed. Little by little that wall seemed to recede ... to vanish ... and he beheld before him the boulevard beneath grey skies and _her_ in her black mantilla ... then her again on the platform ... he even beheld himself by her side.--That which had smitten him so forcibly in the breast at the first moment, now began to rise up ... to rise up in his throat.... He tried to cough, to call some one, but his voice failed him, and to his own amazement, tears which he could not restrain gushed from his eyes.... What had evoked those tears? Pity? Regret? Or was it simply that his nerves had been unable to withstand the sudden shock? Surely, she was nothing to him? Was not that the fact?

"But perhaps that is not true," the thought suddenly occurred to him. "I must find out! But from whom? From the Princess?--No, from Kupfer ... from Kupfer? But they say he is not in Moscow.--Never mind! I must apply to him first!"

With these ideas in his head Arátoff hastily dressed himself, summoned a cab and dashed off to Kupfer.

IX

He had not hoped to find him ... but he did. Kupfer actually had been absent from Moscow for a time, but had returned about a week previously and was even preparing to call on Arátoff again. He welcomed him with his customary cordiality, and began to explain something to him ... but Arátoff immediately interrupted him with the impatient question:

"Hast thou read it?--Is it true?"

"Is what true?" replied the astounded Kupfer.

"About Clara Mílitch?"

Kupfer's face expressed compassion.--"Yes, yes, brother, it is true; she has poisoned herself. It is such a misfortune!"

Arátoff held his peace for a space.--"But hast thou also read it in the newspaper?" he asked:--"Or perhaps thou hast been to Kazán thyself?"

"I have been to Kazán, in fact; the Princess and I conducted her thither. She went on the stage there, and had great success. Only I did not remain there until the catastrophe.... I was in Yaroslávl."

"In Yaroslávl?"

"Yes; I escorted the Princess thither.... She has settled in Yaroslávl now."

"But hast thou trustworthy information?"

"The most trustworthy sort ... at first hand! I made acquaintance in Kazán with her family.--But stay, my dear fellow ... this news seems to agitate thee greatly.--But I remember that Clara did not please thee that time! Thou wert wrong! She was a splendid girl--only her head! She had an ungovernable head! I was greatly distressed about her!"

Arátoff did not utter a word, but dropped down on a chair, and after waiting a while he asked Kupfer to tell him ... he hesitated.

"What?" asked Kupfer.

"Why ... everything," replied Arátoff slowly.--"About her family, for instance ... and so forth. Everything thou knowest!"

"But does that interest thee?--Certainly!"

Kupfer, from whose face it was impossible to discern that he had grieved so greatly over Clara, began his tale.

From his words Arátoff learned that Clara Mílitch's real name had been Katerína Milovídoff; that her father, now dead, had been an official teacher of drawing in Kazán, had painted bad portraits and official images, and moreover had borne the reputation of being a drunkard and a domestic tyrant ... "and a _cultured_ man into the bargain!".... (Here Kupfer laughed in a self-satisfied manner, by way of hinting at the pun he had made);[60]--that he had left at his death, in the first place, a widow of the merchant class, a thoroughly stupid female, straight out of one of Ostróvsky's comedies;[61] and in the second place, a daughter much older than Clara and bearing no resemblance to her--a very clever girl and "greatly developed, my dear fellow!" That the two--widow and daughter--lived in easy circumstances, in a decent little house which had been acquired by the sale of those wretched portraits and holy pictures; that Clara ... or Kátya, whichever you choose to call her, had astonished every one ever since her childhood by her talent, but was of an insubordinate, capricious disposition, and was constantly quarrelling with her father; that having an inborn passion for the theatre, she had run away from the parental house at the age of sixteen with an actress....

"With an actor?" interjected Arátoff.

"No, not with an actor, but an actress; to whom she had become attached.... This actress had a protector, it is true, a wealthy gentleman already elderly, who only refrained from marrying her because he was already married--while the actress, it appeared, was married also."

Further, Kupfer informed Arátoff that, prior to her arrival in Moscow, Clara had acted and sung in provincial theatres; that on losing her friend the actress (the gentleman had died also, it seems, or had made it up with his wife--precisely which Kupfer did not quite remember ...), she had made the acquaintance of the Princess, "that woman of gold, whom thou, my friend Yákoff Andréitch," the narrator added with feeling, "wert not able to appreciate at her true worth"; that finally Clara had been offered an engagement in Kazán, and had accepted it, although she had previously declared that she would never leave Moscow!--But how the people of Kazán had loved her--it was fairly amazing! At every representation she received bouquets and gifts! bouquets and gifts!--A flour merchant, the greatest bigwig in the government, had even presented her with a golden inkstand!--Kupfer narrated all this with great animation, but without, however, displaying any special sentimentality, and interrupting his speech with the question:--"Why dost thou want to know that?" ... or "To what end is that?" when Arátoff, after listening to him with devouring attention, demanded more and still more details. Everything was said at last, and Kupfer ceased speaking, rewarding himself for his toil with a cigar.

"But why did she poison herself?" asked Arátoff. "The newspaper stated...."

Kupfer waved his hands.--"Well.... That I cannot say.... I don't know. But the newspaper lies, Clara behaved in an exemplary manner ... she had no love-affairs.... And how could she, with her pride! She was as proud as Satan himself, and inaccessible! An insubordinate head! Firm as a rock! If thou wilt believe me,--I knew her pretty intimately, seest thou,--I never beheld a tear in her eyes!"

"But I did," thought Arátoff to himself.

"Only there is this to be said," went on Kupfer:--"I noticed a great change in her of late: she became so depressed, she would remain silent for hours at a time; you couldn't get a word out of her. I once asked her: 'Has any one offended you, Katerína Semyónovna?' Because I knew her disposition: she could not endure an insult. She held her peace, and that was the end of it! Even her success on the stage did not cheer her up; they would shower her with bouquets ... and she would not smile! She gave one glance at the gold inkstand,--and put it aside!--She complained that no one would write her a genuine part, as she conceived it. And she gave up singing entirely. I am to blame, brother!... I repeated to her that thou didst not think she had any _school_. But nevertheless ... why she poisoned herself is incomprehensible! And the way she did it too...."

"In what part did she have the greatest success?".... Arátoff wanted to find out what part she had played that last time, but for some reason or other he asked something else.