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'Oh ... everything, Aratov answered brokenly, 'all about her family ... and the rest of it. Everything you know! 'Why, does it interest you? By all means! And Kupfer, whose face showed no traces of his having been so terribly broken-hearted about Clara, began his story.
At dinner Aratov talked a great deal with Platosha, questioned her about the old days, which she remembered, but described very badly, as she had so few words at her command, and except her dear Yasha, had scarcely ever noticed anything in her life.
Dismissing him, Aratov read the letter through and flung it on the ground.... But, after a little while, he picked it up and read it again: a second time he cried, 'Folly! he did not, however, throw the note on the floor again, but put it in a drawer. Aratov took up his ordinary occupations, first one and then another; but nothing he did was successful or satisfactory.
Aratov rose hurriedly from his seat, thanked her for her offer, said he should be sure ... oh, very sure! to come and went off, carrying away with him an impression of a soft voice, gentle and sorrowful eyes, and burning in the tortures of expectation. Aratov went back the same day to the Milovidovs and spent three whole hours in conversation with Anna Semyonovna.
He never for one instant admitted to himself even the idea of going to this idiotic rendezvous ... and at half-past three, after a hastily swallowed dinner, suddenly throwing on his cloak and thrusting his cap on his head, he dashed out into the street, unseen by his aunt, and turned towards the Tversky boulevard. Aratov found few people walking in it. The weather was damp and rather cold.
He was particularly annoyed by a factory lad in a greasy smock, who seated himself on a seat on the other side of the boulevard, and by turns whistling, scratching himself, and swinging his feet in enormous tattered boots, persistently stared at him. 'And his master, thought Aratov, 'is waiting for him, no doubt, while he, lazy scamp, is kicking up his heels here....
On leaving the country-place where they had always lived up till then, the elder Aratov settled in the old capital, with the object of putting his son to the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he bought for a trifle a little house in one of the outlying streets, and established himself in it, with all his books and scientific odds and ends.
And here's a little boat of gold ... will you get into it?... it floats of itself. 'I won't get into it, thought Aratov, 'evil is coming! and for all that he got into the boat. At the bottom lay huddled up a little creature like a monkey; it was holding in its paws a glass full of a dark liquid. 'Pray don't be uneasy, the steward shouted from the bank ... 'It's of no consequence! It's death!
Aratov, who from the very moment of Clara's entrance had never taken his eyes off her, only at that instant recollected that he really had seen her at the princess's; and not only that he had seen her, but that he had even noticed that she had several times, with a peculiar insistency, gazed at him with her dark intent eyes.
He was, as it were, cheated in his expectations ... the very expectation indeed struck him as absurd. 'Well, this is positively idiotic! he muttered, as he got back into bed, and blew out the candle. Profound darkness reigned once more. Aratov resolved to go to sleep this time.... But a fresh sensation started up in him.
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