Arátoff went early to bed, without feeling particularly sleepy; but he
hoped to find rest in bed. The strained condition of his nerves caused
him a fatigue which was far more intolerable than the physical weariness
of the journey and the road. But great as was his fatigue, he could not
get to sleep. He tried to read ... but the lines got entangled before
his eyes. He extinguished his candle, and darkness took possession of
his chamber.--But he continued to lie there sleepless, with closed
eyes.... And now it seemed to him that some one was whispering in his
ear.... "It is the beating of my heart, the rippling of the blood," he
thought.... But the whisper passed into coherent speech. Some one was
talking Russian hurriedly, plaintively, and incomprehensibly. It was
impossible to distinguish a single separate word.... But it was Clara's
voice!
Arátoff opened his eyes, rose up in bed, propped himself on his
elbows.... The voice grew fainter, but continued its plaintive, hurried,
unintelligible speech as before....
It was indubitably Clara's voice!
Some one's fingers ran over the keys of the piano in light arpeggios....
Then the voice began to speak again. More prolonged sounds made
themselves audible ... like moans ... always the same. And then words
began to detach themselves....
"Roses ... roses ... roses."....
"Roses," repeated Arátoff in a whisper.--
"Akh, yes! The roses which I saw on the head of that woman in my
dream...."
"Roses," was audible again.
"Is it thou?" asked Arátoff, whispering as before.
The voice suddenly ceased.
Arátoff waited ... waited--and dropped his head on his pillow. "A
hallucination of hearing," he thought. "Well, and what if ... what if
she really is here, close to me?... What if I were to see her, would I
be frightened? But why should I be frightened? Why should I rejoice?
Possibly because it would be a proof that there is another world, that
the soul is immortal.--But, however, even if I were to see anything,
that also might be a hallucination of the sight"....
Nevertheless he lighted his candle, and shot a glance over the whole
room not without some trepidation ... and descried nothing unusual in
it. He rose, approached the stereoscope ... and there again was the same
grey doll, with eyes which gazed to one side. The feeling of alarm in
Arátoff was replaced by one of vexation. He had been, as it were,
deceived in his expectations ... and those same expectations appeared to
him absurd.--"Well, this is downright stupid!" he muttered as he got
back into bed, and blew out his light. Again profound darkness reigned
in the room.
Arátoff made up his mind to go to sleep this time.... But a new
sensation had cropped up within him. It seemed to him as though some one
were standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and breathing
in a barely perceptible manner. He hastily turned round, opened his
eyes.... But what could be seen in that impenetrable darkness?--He began
to fumble for a match on his night-stand ... and suddenly it seemed to
him as though some soft, noiseless whirlwind dashed across the whole
room, above him, through him--and the words: "'Tis I!" rang plainly in
his ears. "'Tis I! 'Tis I!..."
Several moments passed before he succeeded in lighting a match.
Again there was no one in the room, and he no longer heard anything
except the violent beating of his own heart. He drank a glass of water,
and remained motionless, with his head resting on his hand.
He said to himself: "I will wait. Either this is all nonsense ... or she
is here. She will not play with me like a cat with a mouse!" He waited,
waited a long time ... so long that the hand on which he was propping
his head became numb ... but not a single one of his previous sensations
was repeated. A couple of times his eyes closed.... He immediately
opened them ... at least, it seemed to him that he opened them.
Gradually they became riveted on the door and so remained. The candle
burned out and the room became dark once more ... but the door gleamed
like a long, white spot in the midst of the gloom. And lo! that spot
began to move, it contracted, vanished ... and in its place, on the
threshold, a female form made its appearance. Arátoff looked at it
intently ... it was Clara! And this time she was gazing straight at him,
she moved toward him.... On her head was a wreath of red roses.... It
kept undulating, rising....
Before him stood his aunt in her nightcap, with a broad red ribbon, and
in a white wrapper.
"Platósha!" he enunciated with difficulty.--"Is it you?"
"It is I," replied Platonída Ivánovna.... "It is I, Yashyónotchek, it is
I."
"Why have you come?"
"Why, thou didst wake me. At first thou seemedst to be moaning all the
while ... and then suddenly thou didst begin to shout: 'Save me! Help
me!'"
"I shouted?"
"Yes, thou didst shout, and so hoarsely: 'Save me!'--I thought: 'O Lord!
Can he be ill?' So I entered. Art thou well?"
"Perfectly well."
"Come, that means that thou hast had a bad dream. I will fumigate with
incense if thou wishest--shall I?"
Again Arátoff gazed intently at his aunt, and burst into a loud
laugh.... The figure of the kind old woman in nightcap and wrapper, with
her frightened, long-drawn face, really was extremely comical. All that
mysterious something which had surrounded him, had stifled him, all
those delusions dispersed on the instant.
"No, Platósha, my dear, it is not necessary," he said.--"Forgive me for
having involuntarily alarmed you. May your rest be tranquil--and I will
go to sleep also."
Platonída Ivánovna stood a little while longer on the spot where she
was, pointed at the candle, grumbled: "Why dost thou not extinguish
it? ... there will be a catastrophe before long!"--and as she retired,
could not refrain from making the sign of the cross over him from afar.
Arátoff fell asleep immediately, and slept until morning. He rose in a
fine frame of mind ... although he regretted something.... He felt
light and free. "What romantic fancies one does devise," he said to
himself with a smile. He did not once glance either at the stereoscope
or the leaf which he had torn out. But immediately after breakfast he
set off to see Kupfer.
What drew him thither ... he dimly recognised.