Chapter 14

Clara's father ... (he sometimes asked his wife when he was drunk: "Who was the father of that black-visaged little devil of thine?--I was not!")--Clara's father, in the endeavour to get her off his hands as promptly as possible, undertook to betroth her to a wealthy young merchant, a very stupid fellow,--one of the "cultured" sort. Two weeks before the wedding (she was only sixteen years of age), she walked up to her betrothed, folded her arms, and drumming with her fingers on her elbows (her favourite pose), she suddenly dealt him a blow, bang! on his rosy cheek with her big, strong hand! He sprang to his feet, and merely gasped,--it must be stated that he was dead in love with her.... He asked: "What is that for?" She laughed and left the room.--"I was present in the room," narrated Anna, "and was a witness. I ran after her and said to her: 'Good gracious, Kátya, why didst thou do that?'--But she answered me: 'If he were a real man he would have thrashed me, but as it is, he is a wet hen!' And he asks what it is for, to boot. If he loved me and did not avenge himself, then let him bear it and not ask: 'what is that for?' He'll never get anything of me, unto ages of ages!' And so she did not marry him. Soon afterward she made the acquaintance of that actress, and left our house. My mother wept, but my father only said: 'Away with the refractory goat from the flock!' and would take no trouble, or try to hunt her up. Father did not understand Clara. On the eve of her flight," added Anna, "she almost strangled me in her embrace, and kept repeating: 'I cannot! I cannot do otherwise!... My heart may break in two, but I cannot! our cage is too small ... it is not large enough for my wings! And one cannot escape his fate'"....

"After that," remarked Anna, "we rarely saw each other.... When father died she came to us for a couple of days, took nothing from the inheritance, and again disappeared. She found it oppressive with us.... I saw that. Then she returned to Kazán as an actress."

Arátoff began to interrogate Anna concerning the theatre, the parts in which Clara had appeared, her success.... Anna answered in detail, but with the same sad, although animated enthusiasm. She even showed Arátoff a photographic portrait, which represented Clara in the costume of one of her parts. In the portrait she was looking to one side, as though turning away from the spectators; the ribbon intertwined with her thick hair fell like a serpent on her bare arm. Arátoff gazed long at that portrait, thought it a good likeness, inquired whether Clara had not taken part in public readings, and learned that she had not; that she required the excitement of the theatre, of the stage ... but another question was burning on his lips.

"Anna Semyónovna!" he exclaimed at last, not loudly, but with peculiar force, "tell me, I entreat you, why she ... why she made up her mind to that frightful step?"

Anna dropped her eyes.--"I do not know!" she said, after the lapse of several minutes.--"God is my witness, I do not know!" she continued impetuously, perceiving that Arátoff had flung his hands apart as though he did not believe her.... "From the very time she arrived here she seemed to be thoughtful, gloomy. Something must infallibly have happened to her in Moscow, which I was not able to divine! But, on the contrary, on that fatal day, she seemed ... if not more cheerful, at any rate more tranquil than usual. I did not even have any forebodings," added Anna with a bitter smile, as though reproaching herself for that.

"You see," she began again, "it seemed to have been written in Kátya's fate, that she should be unhappy. She was convinced of it herself from her early youth. She would prop her head on her hand, meditate, and say: 'I shall not live long!' She had forebodings. Just imagine, she even saw beforehand,--sometimes in a dream, sometimes in ordinary wise,--what was going to happen to her! 'I cannot live as I wish, so I will not live at all,' ... was her adage.--'Our life is in our own hands, you know!' And she proved it."

Anna covered her face with her hands and ceased speaking.

"Anna Semyónovna," began Arátoff, after waiting a little: "perhaps you have heard to what the newspapers attributed...."

"To unhappy love?" interrupted Anna, removing her hands from her face with a jerk. "That is a calumny, a calumny, a lie!... My unsullied, unapproachable Kátya ... Kátya! ... and an unhappy, rejected love? And would not I have known about that?... Everybody, everybody fell in love with her ... but she.... And whom could she have fallen in love with here? Who, out of all these men, was worthy of her? Who had attained to that ideal of honour, uprightness, purity,--most of all, purity,--which she constantly held before her, in spite of all her defects?... Reject her ... her...."

Anna's voice broke.... Her fingers trembled slightly. Suddenly she flushed scarlet all over ... flushed with indignation, and at that moment--and only at that moment--did she resemble her sister.

Arátoff attempted to apologise.

"Listen," broke in Anna once more:--"I insist upon it that you shall not believe that calumny yourself, and that you shall dissipate it, if possible! Here, you wish to write an article about her, or something of that sort:--here is an opportunity for you to defend her memory! That is why I am talking so frankly with you. Listen: Kátya left a diary...."

Arátoff started.--"A diary," he whispered.

"Yes, a diary ... that is to say, a few pages only.--Kátya was not fond of writing ... for whole months together she did not write at all ... and her letters were so short! But she was always, always truthful, she never lied.... Lie, forsooth, with her vanity! I ... I will show you that diary! You shall see for yourself whether it contains a single hint of any such unhappy love!"

Anna hastily drew from the table-drawer a thin copy-book, about ten pages in length, no more, and offered it to Arátoff. The latter grasped it eagerly, recognised the irregular, bold handwriting,--the handwriting of that anonymous letter,--opened it at random, and began at the following lines:

"Moscow--Tuesday ... June. I sang and recited at a literary morning. To-day is a significant day for me. _It must decide my fate_." (These words were doubly underlined.) "Once more I have seen...." Here followed several lines which had been carefully blotted out.--And then: "No! no! no!... I must return to my former idea, if only...."

Arátoff dropped the hand in which he held the book, and his head sank quietly on his breast.

"Read!" cried Anna.--"Why don't you read? Read from the beginning.... You can read the whole of it in five minutes, though this diary extends over two whole years. In Kazán she wrote nothing...."

Arátoff slowly rose from his chair, and fairly crashed down on his knees before Anna!

She was simply petrified with amazement and terror.

"Give ... give me this diary," said Arátoff in a fainting voice.--"Give it to me ... and the photograph ... you must certainly have another--but I will return the diary to you.... But I must, I must...."

In his entreaty, in the distorted features of his face there was something so despairing that it even resembled wrath, suffering.... And in reality he was suffering. It seemed as though he had not been able to foresee that such a calamity would descend upon him, and was excitedly begging to be spared, to be saved....

"Give it to me," he repeated.

"But ... you ... you were not in love with my sister?" said Anna at last.

Arátoff continued to kneel.

"I saw her twice in all ... believe me!... and if I had not been impelled by causes which I myself cannot clearly either understand or explain ... if some power that is stronger than I were not upon me.... I would not have asked you.... I would not have come hither.... I must ... I ought ... why, you said yourself that I was bound to restore her image!"

"And you were not in love with my sister?" asked Anna for the second time.

Arátoff did not reply at once, and turned away slightly, as though with pain.

"Well, yes! I was! I was!--And I am in love with her now...." he exclaimed with the same desperation as before.

Footsteps became audible in the adjoining room.

"Rise ... rise ..." said Anna hastily. "My mother is coming."

Arátoff rose.

"And take the diary and the picture. God be with you!--Poor, poor Kátya!... But you must return the diary to me," she added with animation.--"And if you write anything, you must be sure to send it to me.... Do you hear?"

The appearance of Madame Milovídoff released Arátoff from the necessity of replying.--He succeeded, nevertheless, in whispering:--"You are an angel! Thanks! I will send all that I write...."

Madame Milovídoff was too drowsy to divine anything. And so Arátoff left Kazán with the photographic portrait in the side-pocket of his coat. He had returned the copy-book to Anna, but without her having detected it, he had cut out the page on which stood the underlined words.

On his way back to Moscow he was again seized with a sort of stupor. Although he secretly rejoiced that he had got what he went for, yet he repelled all thoughts of Clara until he should reach home again. He meditated a great deal more about her sister Anna.--"Here now," he said to himself, "is a wonderful, sympathetic being! What a delicate comprehension of everything, what a loving heart, what absence of egoism! And how comes it that such girls bloom with us, and in the provinces,--and in such surroundings into the bargain! She is both sickly, and ill-favoured, and not young,--but what a capital wife she would make for an honest, well-educated man! That is the person with whom one ought to fall in love!..." Arátoff meditated thus ... but on his arrival in Moscow the matter took quite another turn.

XIV

Platonída Ivánova was unspeakably delighted at the return of her nephew. She had thought all sorts of things during his absence!--"At the very least he has gone to Siberia!" she whispered, as she sat motionless in her little chamber: "for a year at the very least!"--Moreover the cook had frightened her by imparting the most authentic news concerning the disappearance of first one, then another young man from the neighbourhood. Yásha's complete innocence and trustworthiness did not in the least serve to calm the old woman.--"Because ... much that signifies!--he busies himself with photography ... well, and that is enough! Seize him!" And now here was her Yáshenka come back to her safe and sound! She did notice, it is true, that he appeared to have grown thin, and his face seemed to be sunken--that was comprehensible ... he had had no one to look after him. But she did not dare to question him concerning his trip. At dinner she inquired:

"And is Kazán a nice town?"

"Yes," replied Arátoff.

"Tatárs live there, I believe?"

"Not Tatárs only."

"And hast not thou brought a khalát[65] thence?"

"No, I have not."

And there the conversation ended.

But as soon as Arátoff found himself alone in his study he immediately felt as though something were embracing him round about, as though he were again in _the power_,--precisely that, in the power of another life, of another being. Although he had told Anna--in that outburst of sudden frenzy--that he was in love with Clara, that word now seemed to him devoid of sense and whimsical.--No, he was not in love; and how could he fall in love with a dead woman, whom, even during her lifetime he had not liked, whom he had almost forgotten?--No! But he was in the power of ... in _her_ power ... he no longer belonged to himself. He had been _taken possession of_. Taken possession of to such a point that he was no longer trying to free himself either by ridiculing his own stupidity, or by arousing in himself if not confidence, at least hope that all this would pass over, that it was nothing but nerves,--or by seeking proofs of it,--or in any other way!--"If I meet him I shall take him" he recalled Clara's words reported by Anna ... and so now he had been taken.

But was not she dead? Yes; her body was dead ... but how about her soul?--Was not that immortal ... did it require bodily organs to manifest its power? Magnetism has demonstrated to us the influence of the living human soul upon another living human soul.... Why should not that influence be continued after death, if the soul remains alive?--But with what object? What might be the result of this?--But do we, in general, realise the object of everything which goes on around us?

These reflections occupied Arátoff to such a degree that at tea he suddenly asked Platósha whether she believed in the immortality of the soul. She did not understand at first what it was he had asked; but afterward she crossed herself and replied, "of course. How could the soul be otherwise than immortal?"

"But if that is so, can it act after death?" Arátoff put a second question.

The old woman replied that it could ... that is to say, it can pray for us; when it shall have passed through all sorts of tribulations, and is awaiting the Last Judgment. But during the first forty days it only hovers around the spot where its death occurred.

"During the first forty days?"

"Yes; and after that come its tribulations."[66]

Arátoff was surprised at his aunt's erudition, and went off to his own room.--And again he felt the same thing, that same power upon him. The power was manifested thus--that the image of Clara incessantly presented itself to him, in its most minute details,--details which he did not seem to have observed during her lifetime; he saw ... he saw her fingers, her nails, the bands of hair on her cheeks below her temples, a small mole under the left eye; he saw the movement of her lips, her nostrils, her eyebrows ... and what sort of a gait she had, and how she held her head a little on the right side ... he saw everything!--He did not admire all this at all; he simply could not help thinking about it and seeing it.--Yet he did not dream about her during the first night after his return ... he was very weary and slept like one slain. On the other hand, no sooner did he awake than she again entered his room, and there she remained, as though she had been its owner; just as though she had purchased for herself that right by her voluntary death, without asking him or requiring his permission.

He took her photograph; he began to reproduce it, to enlarge it. Then it occurred to him to arrange it for the stereoscope. It cost him a great deal of trouble, but at last he succeeded. He fairly started when he beheld through the glass her figure which had acquired the semblance of bodily substance. But that figure was grey, as though covered with dust ... and moreover, the eyes ... the eyes still gazed aside, as though they were averting themselves. He began to gaze at them for a long, long time, as though expecting that they might, at any moment, turn themselves in his direction ... he even puckered up his eyes deliberately ... but the eyes remained motionless, and the whole figure assumed the aspect of a doll. He went away, threw himself into an arm-chair, got out the leaf which he had torn from her diary, with the underlined words, and thought: "They say that people in love kiss the lines which have been written by a beloved hand; but I have no desire to do that--and the chirography appears to me ugly into the bargain. But in that line lies my condemnation."--At this point there flashed into his mind the promise he had made to Anna about the article. He seated himself at his table, and set about writing it; but everything he wrote turned out so rhetorical ... worst of all, so artificial ... just as though he did not believe in what he was writing, or in his own feelings ... and Clara herself seemed to him unrecognisable, incomprehensible! She would not yield herself to him.

"No," he thought, throwing aside his pen, "either I have no talent for writing in general, or I must wait a while yet!"

He began to call to mind his visit to the Milovídoffs, and all the narration of Anna, of that kind, splendid Anna.... The word she had uttered: "unsullied!" suddenly struck him. It was exactly as though something had scorched and illuminated him.

"Yes," he said aloud, "she was unsullied and I am unsullied.... That is what has given her this power!"

Thoughts concerning the immortality of the soul, the life beyond the grave, again visited him. "Is it not said in the Bible: 'O death, where is thy sting?' And in Schiller: 'And the dead also shall live!' (_Auch die Todten sollen leben!_)--Or here again, in Mickiewicz, 'I shall love until life ends ... and after life ends!'--While one English writer has said: 'Love is stronger than death!'"--The biblical sentence acted with peculiar force on Arátoff. He wanted to look up the place where those words were to be found.... He had no Bible; he went to borrow one from Platósha. She was astonished; but she got out an old, old book in a warped leather binding with brass clasps, all spotted with wax, and handed it to Arátoff. He carried it off to his own room, but for a long time could not find that verse ... but on the other hand, he hit upon another:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".... (the Gospel of John, Chap. XV, verse 13).

He thought: "That is not properly expressed.--It should read: 'Greater _power_ hath no man!'"....

"But what if she did not set her soul on me at all? What if she killed herself merely because life had become a burden to her?--What if she, in conclusion, did not come to that tryst with the object of obtaining declarations of love at all?"

But at that moment Clara before her parting on the boulevard rose up before him.... He recalled that sorrowful expression on her face, and those tears, and those words:--"Akh, you have understood nothing!"

No! He could not doubt for what object and for what person she had laid down her life....

Thus passed that day until nightfall.

XV

Arátoff went early to bed, without feeling particularly sleepy; but he hoped to find rest in bed. The strained condition of his nerves caused him a fatigue which was far more intolerable than the physical weariness of the journey and the road. But great as was his fatigue, he could not get to sleep. He tried to read ... but the lines got entangled before his eyes. He extinguished his candle, and darkness took possession of his chamber.--But he continued to lie there sleepless, with closed eyes.... And now it seemed to him that some one was whispering in his ear.... "It is the beating of my heart, the rippling of the blood," he thought.... But the whisper passed into coherent speech. Some one was talking Russian hurriedly, plaintively, and incomprehensibly. It was impossible to distinguish a single separate word.... But it was Clara's voice!

Arátoff opened his eyes, rose up in bed, propped himself on his elbows.... The voice grew fainter, but continued its plaintive, hurried, unintelligible speech as before....

It was indubitably Clara's voice!

Some one's fingers ran over the keys of the piano in light arpeggios.... Then the voice began to speak again. More prolonged sounds made themselves audible ... like moans ... always the same. And then words began to detach themselves....

"Roses ... roses ... roses."....

"Roses," repeated Arátoff in a whisper.--

"Akh, yes! The roses which I saw on the head of that woman in my dream...."

"Roses," was audible again.

"Is it thou?" asked Arátoff, whispering as before.

The voice suddenly ceased.

Arátoff waited ... waited--and dropped his head on his pillow. "A hallucination of hearing," he thought. "Well, and what if ... what if she really is here, close to me?... What if I were to see her, would I be frightened? But why should I be frightened? Why should I rejoice? Possibly because it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal.--But, however, even if I were to see anything, that also might be a hallucination of the sight"....

Nevertheless he lighted his candle, and shot a glance over the whole room not without some trepidation ... and descried nothing unusual in it. He rose, approached the stereoscope ... and there again was the same grey doll, with eyes which gazed to one side. The feeling of alarm in Arátoff was replaced by one of vexation. He had been, as it were, deceived in his expectations ... and those same expectations appeared to him absurd.--"Well, this is downright stupid!" he muttered as he got back into bed, and blew out his light. Again profound darkness reigned in the room.

Arátoff made up his mind to go to sleep this time.... But a new sensation had cropped up within him. It seemed to him as though some one were standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and breathing in a barely perceptible manner. He hastily turned round, opened his eyes.... But what could be seen in that impenetrable darkness?--He began to fumble for a match on his night-stand ... and suddenly it seemed to him as though some soft, noiseless whirlwind dashed across the whole room, above him, through him--and the words: "'Tis I!" rang plainly in his ears. "'Tis I! 'Tis I!..."

Several moments passed before he succeeded in lighting a match.

Again there was no one in the room, and he no longer heard anything except the violent beating of his own heart. He drank a glass of water, and remained motionless, with his head resting on his hand.

He said to himself: "I will wait. Either this is all nonsense ... or she is here. She will not play with me like a cat with a mouse!" He waited, waited a long time ... so long that the hand on which he was propping his head became numb ... but not a single one of his previous sensations was repeated. A couple of times his eyes closed.... He immediately opened them ... at least, it seemed to him that he opened them. Gradually they became riveted on the door and so remained. The candle burned out and the room became dark once more ... but the door gleamed like a long, white spot in the midst of the gloom. And lo! that spot began to move, it contracted, vanished ... and in its place, on the threshold, a female form made its appearance. Arátoff looked at it intently ... it was Clara! And this time she was gazing straight at him, she moved toward him.... On her head was a wreath of red roses.... It kept undulating, rising....

Before him stood his aunt in her nightcap, with a broad red ribbon, and in a white wrapper.

"Platósha!" he enunciated with difficulty.--"Is it you?"

"It is I," replied Platonída Ivánovna.... "It is I, Yashyónotchek, it is I."

"Why have you come?"

"Why, thou didst wake me. At first thou seemedst to be moaning all the while ... and then suddenly thou didst begin to shout: 'Save me! Help me!'"

"I shouted?"

"Yes, thou didst shout, and so hoarsely: 'Save me!'--I thought: 'O Lord! Can he be ill?' So I entered. Art thou well?"

"Perfectly well."

"Come, that means that thou hast had a bad dream. I will fumigate with incense if thou wishest--shall I?"

Again Arátoff gazed intently at his aunt, and burst into a loud laugh.... The figure of the kind old woman in nightcap and wrapper, with her frightened, long-drawn face, really was extremely comical. All that mysterious something which had surrounded him, had stifled him, all those delusions dispersed on the instant.

"No, Platósha, my dear, it is not necessary," he said.--"Forgive me for having involuntarily alarmed you. May your rest be tranquil--and I will go to sleep also."

Platonída Ivánovna stood a little while longer on the spot where she was, pointed at the candle, grumbled: "Why dost thou not extinguish it? ... there will be a catastrophe before long!"--and as she retired, could not refrain from making the sign of the cross over him from afar.