Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Clara Mílitch – Contents
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VIII
Akátoff was very much out of sorts all the following day.
“What is the matter, Yásha?” Platonída Ivánovna said to him. “Thou seemest to be tousled to-day, somehow.”… In the old woman’s peculiar language this quite accurately defined Arátoff’s moral condition. He could not work, but even he himself did not know what he wanted. Now he was expecting Kupfer again (he suspected that it was precisely from Kupfer that Clara had obtained his address … and who else could have “talked a great deal” about him?); again he wondered whether his acquaintance with her was to end in that way? … again he imagined that she would write him another letter; again he asked himself whether he ought not to write her a letter, in which he might explain everything to her,—-as he did not wish to leave an unpleasant impression of himself…. But, in point of fact, what was he to explain?—Now he aroused in himself something very like disgust for her, for her persistence, her boldness; again that indescribably touching face presented itself to him and her irresistible voice made itself heard; and yet again he recalled her singing, her recitation—and did not know whether he was right in his wholesale condemnation.—In one word: he was a tousled man! At last he became bored with all this and decided, as the saying is, “to take it upon himself” and erase all that affair, as it undoubtedly was interfering with his avocations and disturbing his peace of mind.—He did not find it so easy to put his resolution into effect…. More than a week elapsed before he got back again into his ordinary rut. Fortunately, Kupfer did not present himself at all, any more than if he had not been in Moscow. Not long before the “affair” Arátoff had begun to busy himself with painting for photographic ends; he devoted himself to this with redoubled zeal.
Thus, imperceptibly, with a few “relapses” as the doctors express it, consisting, for example in the fact that he once came very near going to call on the Princess, two weeks … three weeks passed … and Arátoff became once more the Arátoff of old. Only deep down, under the surface of his life, something heavy and dark secretly accompanied him in all his comings and goings. Thus does a large fish which has just been hooked, but has not yet been drawn out, swim along the bottom of a deep river under the very boat wherein sits the fisherman with his stout rod in hand.
And lo! one day as he was skimming over some not quite fresh numbers of the Moscow News, Arátoff hit upon the following correspondence:
“With great sorrow,” wrote a certain local literary man from Kazán, “we insert in our theatrical chronicle the news of the sudden death of our gifted actress, Clara Mílitch, who had succeeded in the brief space of her engagement in becoming the favourite of our discriminating public. Our sorrow is all the greater because Miss Mílitch herself put an end to her young life, which held so much of promise, by means of poison. And this poisoning is all the more dreadful because the actress took the poison on the stage itself! They barely got her home, where, to universal regret, she died. Rumours are current in the town to the effect that unrequited love led her to that terrible deed.”
Arátoff softly laid the newspaper on the table. To all appearances he remained perfectly composed … but something smote him simultaneously in his breast and in his head, and then slowly diffused itself through all his members. He rose to his feet, stood for a while on one spot, and again seated himself, and again perused the letter. Then he rose once more, lay down on his bed and placing his hands under his head, he stared for a long time at the wall like one dazed. Little by little that wall seemed to recede … to vanish … and he beheld before him the boulevard beneath grey skies and her in her black mantilla … then her again on the platform … he even beheld himself by her side.—That which had smitten him so forcibly in the breast at the first moment, now began to rise up … to rise up in his throat…. He tried to cough, to call some one, but his voice failed him, and to his own amazement, tears which he could not restrain gushed from his eyes…. What had evoked those tears? Pity? Regret? Or was it simply that his nerves had been unable to withstand the sudden shock? Surely, she was nothing to him? Was not that the fact?
“But perhaps that is not true,” the thought suddenly occurred to him. “I must find out! But from whom? From the Princess?—No, from Kupfer … from Kupfer? But they say he is not in Moscow.—Never mind! I must apply to him first!”
With these ideas in his head Arátoff hastily dressed himself, summoned a cab and dashed off to Kupfer.
< < < Chapter VII
Chapter IX > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Clara Mílitch – Contents
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