Dream Tales and Prose Poems Part 3

Kupfer waved his hand. 'Well ... that I can't say ... I don't know. But the paper tells a lie. Clara's conduct was exemplary ... no love affairs of any kind.... And indeed how should there be with her pride! She was proud--as Satan himself--and unapproachable! A headstrong creature! Hard as rock!

You'll hardly believe it--though I knew her so well--I never saw a tear in her eyes!'

'But I have,' Aratov thought to himself.

'But there's one thing,' continued Kupfer, 'of late I noticed a great change in her: she grew so dull, so silent, for hours together there was no getting a word out of her. I asked her even, "Has any one offended you, Katerina Semyonovna?" For I knew her temper; she could never swallow an affront! But she was silent, and there was no doing anything with her! Even her triumphs on the stage didn't cheer her up; bouquets fairly showered on her ... but she didn't even smile! She gave one look at the gold inkstand--and put it aside! She used to complain that no one had written the real part for her, as she conceived it. And her singing she'd given up altogether. It was my fault, my dear boy!... I told her that you thought she'd no musical knowledge. But for all that ... why she poisoned herself--is incomprehensible! And the way she did it!...'

'In what part had she the greatest success?'... Aratov wanted to know in what part she had appeared for the last time, but for some reason he asked a different question.

'In Ostrovosky's _Gruna_, as far as I remember. But I tell you again she'd no love affairs! You may be sure of that from one thing. She lived in her mother's house.... You know the sort of shopkeeper's houses: in every corner a holy picture and a little lamp before it, a deadly stuffiness, a sour smell, nothing but chairs along the walls in the drawing-room, a geranium in the window, and if a visitor drops in, the mistress sighs and groans, as if they were invaded by an enemy. What chance is there for gallantry or love-making? Sometimes they wouldn't even admit me. Their servant, a muscular female, in a red sarafan, with an enormous bust, would stand right across the pa.s.sage, and growl, "Where are you coming?" No, I positively can't understand why she poisoned herself. Sick of life, I suppose,' Kupfer concluded his cogitations philosophically.

Aratov sat with downcast head. 'Can you give me the address of that house in Kazan?' he said at last.

'Yes; but what do you want it for? Do you want to write a letter there?'

'Perhaps.' 'Well, you know best. But the old lady won't answer, for she can't read and write. The sister, though, perhaps ... Oh, the sister's a clever creature! But I must say again, I wonder at you, my dear boy! Such indifference before ... and now such interest! All this, my boy, comes from too much solitude!'

Aratov made no reply, and went away, having provided himself with the Kazan address.

When he was on his way to Kupfer's, excitement, bewilderment, expectation had been reflected on his face.... Now he walked with an even gait, with downcast eyes, and hat pulled over his brows; almost every one who met him sent a glance of curiosity after him ... but he did not observe any one who pa.s.sed ... it was not as on the Tversky boulevard!

'Unhappy Clara! poor frantic Clara!' was echoing in his soul.

X

The following day Aratov spent, however, fairly quietly. He was even able to give his mind to his ordinary occupations. But there was one thing: both during his work and during his leisure he was continually thinking of Clara, of what Kupfer had told him the evening before. It is true that his meditations, too, were of a fairly tranquil character. He fancied that this strange girl interested him from the psychological point of view, as something of the nature of a riddle, the solution of which was worth racking his brains over. 'Ran away with an actress living as a kept mistress,' he pondered, 'put herself under the protection of that princess, with whom she seems to have lived--and no _love affairs_'? It's incredible!... Kupfer talked of pride! But in the first place we know'

(Aratov ought to have said: we have read in books),...'we know that pride can exist side by side with levity of conduct; and secondly, how came she, if she were so proud, to make an appointment with a man who might treat her with contempt ... and did treat her with it ... and in a public place, moreover ... in a boulevard!' At this point Aratov recalled all the scene in the boulevard, and he asked himself, Had he really shown contempt for Clara? 'No,' he decided,... 'it was another feeling ... a feeling of doubt ... lack of confidence, in fact!' 'Unhappy Clara!' was again ringing in his head. 'Yes, unhappy,' he decided again.... 'That's the most fitting word.

And, if so, I was unjust. She said truly that I did not understand her. A pity! Such a remarkable creature, perhaps, came so close ... and I did not take advantage of it, I repulsed her.... Well, no matter! Life's all before me. There will be, very likely, other meetings, perhaps more interesting!

'But on what grounds did she fix on _me_ of all the world?' He glanced into a looking-gla.s.s by which he was pa.s.sing. 'What is there special about me?

I'm not a beauty, am I? My face ... is like any face.... She was not a beauty either, though.

'Not a beauty ... and such an expressive face! Immobile ... and yet expressive! I never met such a face.... And talent, too, she has ... that is, she had, unmistakable. Untrained, undeveloped, even coa.r.s.e, perhaps ...

but unmistakable talent. And in that case I was unjust to her.' Aratov was carried back in thought to the literary musical matinee ... and he observed to himself how exceedingly clearly he recollected every word she had sung of recited, every intonation of her voice.... 'That would not have been so had she been without talent. And now it is all in the grave, to which she has hastened of herself.... But I've nothing to do with that ... I'm not to blame! It would be positively ridiculous to suppose that I'm to blame.'

It again occurred to Aratov that even if she had had 'anything of the sort'

in her mind, his behaviour during their interview must have effectually disillusioned her.... 'That was why she laughed so cruelly, too, at parting. Besides, what proof is there that she took poison because of unrequited love? That's only the newspaper correspondents, who ascribe every death of that sort to unrequited love! People of a character like Clara's readily feel life repulsive ... burdensome. Yes, burdensome. Kupfer was right; she was simply sick of life.

'In spite of her successes, her triumphs?' Aratov mused. He got a positive pleasure from the psychological a.n.a.lysis to which he was devoting himself.

Remote till now from all contact with women, he did not even suspect all the significance for himself of this intense realisation of a woman's soul.

'It follows,' he pursued his meditations, 'that art did not satisfy her, did not fill the void in her life. Real artists exist only for art, for the theatre.... Everything else is pale beside what they regard as their vocation.... She was a dilettante.'

At this point Aratov fell to pondering again. 'No, the word dilettante did not accord with that face, the expression of that face, those eyes....'

And Clara's image floated again before him, with eyes, swimming in tears, fixed upon him, with clenched hands pressed to her lips....

'Ah, no, no,' he muttered, 'what's the use?'

So pa.s.sed the whole day. 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. She could only rejoice that he was nice and good-humoured to-day; towards evening Aratov was so far calm that he played several games of cards with his aunt.

So pa.s.sed the day ... but the night!

XI

It began well; he soon fell asleep, and when his aunt went into him on tip-toe to make the sign of the cross three times over him in his sleep--she did so every night--he lay breathing as quietly as a child. But before dawn he had a dream.

He dreamed he was on a bare steppe, strewn with big stones, under a lowering sky. Among the stones curved a little path; he walked along it.

Suddenly there rose up in front of him something of the nature of a thin cloud. He looked steadily at it; the cloud turned into a woman in a white gown with a bright sash round her waist. She was hurrying away from him. He saw neither her face nor her hair ... they were covered by a long veil. But he had an intense desire to overtake her, and to look into her face. Only, however much he hastened, she went more quickly than he.

On the path lay a broad flat stone, like a tombstone. It blocked up the way. The woman stopped. Aratov ran up to her; but yet he could not see her eyes ... they were shut. Her face was white, white as snow; her hands hung lifeless. She was like a statue.

Slowly, without bending a single limb, she fell backwards, and sank down upon the tombstone.... And then Aratov lay down beside her, stretched out straight like a figure on a monument, his hands folded like a dead man's.

But now the woman suddenly rose, and went away. Aratov tried to get up too ... but he could neither stir nor unclasp his hands, and could only gaze after her in despair.

Then the woman suddenly turned round, and he saw bright living eyes, in a living but unknown face. She laughed, she waved her hand to him ... and still he could not move.

She laughed once more, and quickly retreated, merrily nodding her head, on which there was a crimson wreath of tiny roses.

Aratov tried to cry out, tried to throw off this awful nightmare....

Suddenly all was darkness around ... and the woman came back to him. But this was not the unknown statue ... it was Clara. She stood before him, crossed her arms, and sternly and intently looked at him. Her lips were tightly pressed together, but Aratov fancied he heard the words, 'If you want to know what I am, come over here!'

'Where?' he asked.

'Here!' he heard the wailing answer. 'Here!'

Aratov woke up.

He sat up in bed, lighted the candle that stood on the little table by his bedside--but did not get up--and sat a long while, chill all over, slowly looking about him. It seemed to him as if something had happened to him since he went to bed; that something had taken possession of him ...

something was in control of him. 'But is it possible?' he murmured unconsciously. 'Does such a power really exist?'

He could not stay in his bed. He quickly dressed, and till morning he was pacing up and down his room. And, strange to say, of Clara he never thought for a moment, and did not think of her, because he had decided to go next day to Kazan!

He thought only of the journey, of how to manage it, and what to take with him, and how he would investigate and find out everything there, and would set his mind at rest. 'If I don't go,' he reasoned with himself, 'why, I shall go out of my mind!' He was afraid of that, afraid of his nerves. He was convinced that when once he had seen everything there with his own eyes, every obsession would vanish like that nightmare. 'And it will be a week lost over the journey,' he thought; 'what is a week? else I shall never shake it off.'

The rising sun shone into his room; but the light of day did not drive away the shadows of the night that lay upon him, and did not change his resolution.

Platosha almost had a fit when he informed her of his intention. She positively sat down on the ground ... her legs gave way beneath her. 'To Kazan? why to Kazan?' she murmured, her dim eyes round with astonishment.

She would not have been more surprised if she had been told that her Yasha was going to marry the baker woman next door, or was starting for America.

'Will you be long in Kazan?' 'I shall be back in a week,' answered Aratov, standing with his back half-turned to his aunt, who was still sitting on the floor.

Platonida Ivanovna tried to protest more, but Aratov answered her in an utterly unexpected and unheard-of way: 'I'm not a child,' he shouted, and he turned pale all over, his lips trembled, and his eyes glittered wrathfully. 'I'm twenty-six, I know what I'm about, I'm free to do what I like! I suffer no one ... Give me the money for the journey, pack my box with my clothes and linen ... and don't torture me! I'll be back in a week, Platosha,' he added, in a somewhat softer tone.

Platosha got up, sighing and groaning, and, without further protest, crawled to her room. Yasha had alarmed her. 'I've no head on my shoulders,'