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Updated: May 13, 2025
'By God, I don't know! she went on strenuously, supposing from Aratov's gesture that he did not believe her.... 'since she came back here certainly she was melancholy, depressed. Something must have happened to her in Moscow what, I could never guess. But on the other hand, on that fatal day she seemed as it were ... if not more cheerful, at least more serene than usual.
Death has no terrors for me now. It cannot, then, annihilate me? On the contrary, only thus and there can I be happy ... as I have not been happy in life, as she has not.... We are both pure! Oh, that kiss! Platonida Ivanovna was incessantly coming into Aratov's room. She did not worry him with questions; she merely looked at him, muttered, sighed, and went out again.
Madame Milovidov was in the habit of lying down directly after dinner at two o'clock and resting till evening tea at seven. Aratov's talk with Clara's sister was not exactly a conversation; she did almost all the talking, at first with hesitation, with embarrassment, then with a warmth that refused to be stifled. It was obvious that she had adored her sister.
And in the midst of the whirling darkness Aratov saw Clara in a stage-dress; she was lifting a glass to her lips, listening to shouts of 'Bravo! bravo! in the distance, and some coarse voice shouted in Aratov's ear: 'Ah! did you think it would all end in a farce? No; it's a tragedy! a tragedy! Trembling all over, Aratov awoke.
He had, in his own words, got on to the building of the Church of our Saviour, though, of course, he knew nothing whatever of architecture. Strange to say, this one solitary friend of Aratov's, by name Kupfer, a German, so far Russianised that he did not know one word of German, and even fell foul of 'the Germans, this friend had apparently nothing in common with him.
Aratov's modesty did not for one instant admit of the idea that he might have made an impression on this strange girl, that he might have inspired in her a sentiment akin to love, to passion!... And indeed, he himself had formed a totally different conception of the still unknown woman, the girl to whom he was to give himself wholly, who would love him, be his bride, his wife.... He seldom dwelt on this dream in spirit as in body he was virginal; but the pure image that arose at such times in his fancy was inspired by a very different figure, the figure of his dead mother, whom he scarcely remembered, but whose portrait he treasured as a sacred relic.
'What is it, Yasha? Platonida Ivanovna said to him: 'you seem somehow all loose ends to-day!... In her own peculiar idiom the old lady's expression described fairly accurately Aratov's mental condition. He could not work and he did not know himself what he wanted.
And it was in the papers too! Aratov's hands had grown suddenly cold, and he felt an inward shiver. 'No, you didn't tell me that, he said at last. 'And you don't know what play it was? Kupfer thought a minute. 'I did hear what the play was ... there is a betrayed girl in it.... Some drama, it must have been.
And how girls like that spring up among us, in the provinces, and in such surroundings too! She is not strong, and not good-looking, and not young; but what a splendid helpmate she would be for a sensible, cultivated man! That's the girl I ought to have fallen in love with! Such were Aratov's reflections ... but on his arrival in Moscow things put on quite a different complexion.
She jumped up, rushed into Aratov's room, and as on the night before, found him lying on the floor. But he did not come to himself as on the previous night, in spite of all they could do. He fell the same night into a high fever, complicated by failure of the heart. A few days later he passed away. A strange circumstance attended his second fainting-fit.
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