Arátoff found his sanguine friend at home. He chatted a little with him,
reproached him for having quite forgotten him and his aunt, listened to
fresh laudations of the golden woman, the Princess, from whom Kupfer had
just received,--from Yaroslávl,--a skull-cap embroidered with
fish-scales ... and then suddenly sitting down in front of Kupfer, and
looking him straight in the eye, he announced that he had been to Kazán.
"Thou hast been to Kazán? Why so?"
"Why, because I wished to collect information about that ... Clara
Mílitch."
"The girl who poisoned herself?"
"Yes."
Kupfer shook his head.--"What a fellow thou art! And such a sly one!
Thou hast travelled a thousand versts there and back ... and all for
what? Hey? If there had only been some feminine interest there! Then I
could understand everything! every sort of folly!"--Kupfer ruffled up
his hair.--"But for the sake of collecting materials, as you learned men
put it.... No, I thank you! That's what the committee of statistics
exists for!--Well, and what about it--didst thou make acquaintance with
the old woman and with her sister? She's a splendid girl, isn't she?"
"Splendid," assented Arátoff.--"She communicated to me many curious
things."
"Did she tell thee precisely how Clara poisoned herself?"
"Thou meanest ... what dost thou mean?"
"Why, in what manner?"
"No.... She was still in such affliction.... I did not dare to question
her too much. But was there anything peculiar about it?"
"Of course there was. Just imagine: she was to have acted that very
day--and she did act. She took a phial of poison with her to the
theatre, drank it before the first act, and in that condition played
through the whole of that act. With the poison inside her! What dost
thou think of that strength of will? What character, wasn't it? And they
say that she never sustained her role with so much feeling, with so much
warmth! The audience suspected nothing, applauded, recalled her.... But
as soon as the curtain fell she dropped down where she stood on the
stage. She began to writhe ... and writhe ... and at the end of an hour
her spirit fled! But is it possible I did not tell thee that? It was
mentioned in the newspapers also."
Arátoff's hands suddenly turned cold and his chest began to heave. "No,
thou didst not tell me that," he said at last.--"And dost thou not know
what the piece was?"
Kupfer meditated.--"I was told the name of the piece ... a young girl
who has been betrayed appears in it.... It must be some drama or other.
Clara was born for dramatic parts. Her very appearance.... But where art
thou going?" Kupfer interrupted himself, perceiving that Arátoff was
picking up his cap.
"I do not feel quite well," replied Arátoff. "Good-bye.... I will drop
in some other time."
Kupfer held him back and looked him in the face.--"What a nervous fellow
thou art, brother! Just look at thyself.... Thou hast turned as white as
clay."
"I do not feel well," repeated Arátoff, freeing himself from Kupfer's
hands and going his way. Only at that moment did it become clear to him
that he had gone to Kupfer with the sole object of talking about
Clara....
"About foolish, about unhappy Clara"....
But on reaching home he speedily recovered his composure to a certain
extent.
The circumstances which had attended Clara's death at first exerted a
shattering impression upon him ... but later on that acting "with the
poison inside her," as Kupfer had expressed it, seemed to him a
monstrous phrase, a piece of bravado, and he tried not to think of it,
fearing to arouse within himself a feeling akin to aversion. But at
dinner, as he sat opposite Platósha, he suddenly remembered her
nocturnal apparition, recalled that bob-tailed wrapper, that cap with
the tall ribbon (and why should there be a ribbon on a night-cap?), the
whole of that ridiculous figure, at which all his visions had dispersed
into dust, as though at the whistle of the machinist in a fantastic
ballet! He even made Platósha repeat the tale of how she had heard him
shout, had taken fright, had leaped out of bed, had not been able at
once to find either her own door or his, and so forth. In the evening he
played cards with her and went off to his own room in a somewhat sad but
fairly tranquil state of mind.
Arátoff did not think about the coming night, and did not fear it; he
was convinced that he should pass it in the best possible manner. The
thought of Clara awoke in him from time to time; but he immediately
remembered that she had killed herself in a "spectacular" manner, and
turned away. That "outrageous" act prevented other memories from rising
in him. Giving a cursory glance at the stereoscope it seemed to him that
she was looking to one side because she felt ashamed. Directly over the
stereoscope on the wall, hung the portrait of his mother. Arátoff
removed it from its nail, kissed it, and carefully put it away in a
drawer. Why did he do this? Because that portrait must not remain in the
vicinity of that woman ... or for some other reason--Arátoff did not
quite know. But his mother's portrait evoked in him memories of his
father ... of that father whom he had seen dying in that same room, on
that very bed. "What dost thou think about all this, father?" he
mentally addressed him. "Thou didst understand all this; thou didst also
believe in Schiller's world of spirits.--Give me counsel!"
"My father has given me counsel to drop all these follies," said Arátoff
aloud, and took up a book. But he was not able to read long, and feeling
a certain heaviness all through his body, he went to bed earlier than
usual, in the firm conviction that he should fall asleep immediately.
And so it came about ... but his hopes for a peaceful night were not
realised.