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He felt great embarrassment; but her embarrassment was no less. Aratov, even through the veil, could not help noticing how deadly pale she had turned. Yet she was the first to speak. 'Thanks, she began in an unsteady voice, 'thanks for coming. I did not expect ... She turned a little away and walked along the boulevard. Aratov walked after her.
Kupfer probably realised that it had been a mistake on his part to disturb his friend, and that Aratov really was a man 'not suited' to that circle and way of life. On his side, too, Aratov said nothing of the princess, nor of the previous evening. Platonida Ivanovna did not know whether to rejoice at the failure of this first experiment or to regret it.
Not one separate word could he catch.... But it was the voice of Clara. Aratov opened his eyes, raised himself, leaned on his elbow.... The voice grew fainter, but kept up its plaintive, hurried talk, indistinct as before.... It was unmistakably Clara's voice. Unseen fingers ran light arpeggios up and down the keys of the piano ... then the voice began again.
Then a stout gentleman in spectacles, of an exceedingly solid, even surly aspect, read in a bass voice a sketch of Shtchedrin; the sketch was applauded, not the reader; then the pianist, whom Aratov had seen before, came forward and strummed the same fantasia of Liszt; the pianist gained an encore.
'You understand all this; you too believed in Schiller's world of spirits. Give me advice! 'Father would have advised me to give up all this idiocy, Aratov said aloud, and he took up a book. He could not, however, read for long, and feeling a sort of heaviness all over, he went to bed earlier than usual, in the full conviction that he would fall asleep at once.
Aratov up till very night kept telling himself, no! no! but with the same irritation, the same exasperation, he fell again into musing on the note, on the 'gipsy girl, on the appointed meeting, to which he would certainly not go! And at night she gave him no rest.
When they lifted him up and laid him on his bed, in his clenched right hand they found a small tress of a woman's dark hair. Where did this lock of hair come from? Anna Semyonovna had such a lock of hair left by Clara; but what could induce her to give Aratov a relic so precious to her? Could she have put it somewhere in the diary, and not have noticed it when she lent the book?
Glancing cursorily into the stereoscope, he even fancied that she was averting her eyes because she was ashamed. Opposite the stereoscope on the wall hung a portrait of his mother. Aratov took it from its nail, scrutinised it a long while, kissed it and carefully put it away in a drawer. Why did he do that?
Sleep well, and I will sleep too. Platonida Ivanovna remained a minute standing where she was, pointed to the candle, grumbled, 'Why not put it out ... an accident happens in a minute? and as she went out, could not refrain, though only at a distance, from making the sign of the cross over him. Aratov fell asleep quickly, and slept till morning.
Aratov did not think about the approaching night, and was not afraid of it: he was sure he would pass an excellent night. The thought of Clara had sprung up within him from time to time; but he remembered at once how 'affectedly' she had killed herself, and turned away from it. This piece of 'bad taste' blocked out all other memories of her.
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