Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
'With an actor? put in Aratov. 'No, not with an actor, with an actress, to whom she became attached.... It's true this actress had a protector, a wealthy gentleman, no longer young, who did not marry her simply because he happened to be married and indeed I fancy the actress was a married woman. Furthermore Kupfer informed Aratov that Clara had even before her coming to Moscow acted and sung in provincial theatres, that, having lost her friend the actress the gentleman, too, it seemed, had died, or else he had made it up with his wife Kupfer could not quite remember this she had made the acquaintance of the princess, 'that heart of gold, whom you, my dear Yakov Andreitch, the speaker added with feeling, 'were incapable of appreciating properly'; that at last Clara had been offered an engagement in Kazan, and that she had accepted it, though before then she used to declare that she would never leave Moscow!
Whether it was that it was not fitting for this portrait to be so close to that woman ... or for some other reason Aratov did not inquire of himself. But his mother's portrait stirred up memories of his father ... of his father, whom he had seen dying in this very room, in this bed. 'What do you think of all this, father? he mentally addressed himself to him.
Kupfer came next day to dinner; he did not begin, however, expatiating on the preceding evening, he did not even reproach Aratov for his hasty retreat, and only regretted that he had not stayed to supper, when there had been champagne!
Aratov waited ... and waited, and dropped his head on the pillow. 'Hallucinations of hearing, he thought. 'But if ... if she really were here, close at hand?... If I were to see her, should I be frightened? or glad? But what should I be frightened of? or glad of? Why, of this, to be sure; it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal.
And yet Aratov could not succeed in getting out of his head this dark-skinned gipsy, whose singing and reading and very appearance were displeasing to him. He was puzzled, he was angry with himself. Not long before he had read Sir Walter Scott's novel, St. The heroine of that novel is called Clara Mowbray.
She was simply petrified with wonder and dismay. 'Give me ... give me that diary, Aratov began with failing voice, and he stretched out both hands to Anna. 'Give it me ... and the photograph ... you are sure to have some other one, and the diary I will return.... But I want it, oh, I want it!...
From his account Aratov learnt that Clara Militch's real name was Katerina Milovidov; that her father, now dead, had held the post of drawing-master in a school in Kazan, had painted bad portraits and holy pictures of the regulation type; that he had besides had the character of being a drunkard and a domestic tyrant; that he had left behind him, first a widow, of a shopkeeper's family, a quite stupid body, a character straight out of an Ostrovsky comedy; and secondly, a daughter much older than Clara and not like her a very clever girl, and enthusiastic, only sickly, a remarkable girl and very advanced in her ideas, my dear boy!
Aratov found his sanguine friend at home. He chatted a little with him, reproached him for having quite forgotten his aunt and himself, listened to fresh praises of that heart of gold, the princess, who had just sent Kupfer from Yaroslav a smoking-cap embroidered with fish-scales ... and all at once, sitting just opposite Kupfer and looking him straight in the face, he announced that he had been a journey to Kazan.
Kupfer overtook him.... 'I say, where are you off to? he called; 'would you like me to present you to Clara? 'No, thanks, Aratov returned hurriedly, and he went homewards almost at a run. He was agitated by strange sensations, incomprehensible to himself. In reality, Clara's recitation, too, had not been quite to his taste ... though he could not quite tell why.
More prolonged sounds were audible ... as it were moans ... always the same over and over again. Then apart from the rest the words began to stand out ... 'Roses ... roses ... roses.... 'Roses, repeated Aratov in a whisper. 'Ah, yes! it's the roses I saw on that woman's head in the dream.... 'Roses, he heard again. 'Is that you? Aratov asked in the same whisper. The voice suddenly ceased.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking