Dream Tales and Prose Poems Page 4

  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 passed … 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-glass by which he was passing. '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 coarse, perhaps … but unmistakable talent. And in that case I was unjust to her.' Aratov was carried back in thought to the literary musical matinée … 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 analysis 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 passed 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 passed 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,' she told the cook, who was helping her to pack Yasha's things; 'no head at all, but a hive full of bees all a-buzz and a-hum! He's going off to Kazan, my good soul, to Ka-a-zan!' The cook, who had observed their dvornik the previous evening talking for a long time with a police officer, would have liked to inform her mistress of this circumstance, but did not dare, and only reflected, 'To Kazan! if only it's nowhere farther still!' Platonida Ivanovna was so upset that she did not even utter her usual prayer. 'In such a calamity the Lord God Himself cannot aid us!'

  The same day Aratov set off for Kazan.

  XII

  He had no sooner reached that town and taken a room in a hotel than he rushed off to find out the house of the widow Milovidov. During the whole journey he had been in a sort of benumbed condition, which had not, however, prevented him from taking all the necessary steps, changing at Nizhni-Novgorod from the railway to the steamer, getting his meals at the stations etc., etc. He was convinced as before that there everything would be solved; and therefore he drove away every sort of memory and reflection, confining himself to one thing, the mental rehearsal of the speech, in which he would lay before the family of Clara Militch the real cause of his visit. And now at last he reached the goal of his efforts, and sent up his name. He was admitted … with perplexity and alarm—still he was admitted.

  The house of the widow Milovidov turned out to be exactly as Kupfer had described it; and the widow herself really was like one of the tradesmen's wives in Ostrovsky, though the widow of an official; her husband had held his post under government. Not without some difficulty, Aratov, after a preliminary apology for his boldness, for the strangeness of his visit, delivered the speech he had prepared, explaining that he was anxious to collect all the information possible about the gifted artist so early lost, that he was not led to this by idle curiosity, but by profound sympathy for her talent, of which he was the devoted admirer (he said that, devoted admirer!) that, in fact, it would be a sin to leave the public in ignorance of what it had lost—and why its hopes were not realised. Madame Milovidov did not interrupt Aratov; she did not understand very well what this unknown visitor was saying to her, and merely opened her eyes rather wide and rolled them upon him, thinking, however, that he had a quiet respectable air, was well dressed … and not a pickpocket … hadn't come to beg.

  'You are speaking of Katia?' she inquired, directly Aratov was silent.

  'Yes … of your daughter.'

  'And you have come from Moscow for this?'

  'Yes, from Moscow.'

  'Only on this account?'

  'Yes.'

  Madame Milovidov gave herself a sudden shake. 'Why, are you an author? Do you write for the newspapers?'

  'No, I'm not an author—and hitherto I have not written for the newspapers.'

  The widow bowed her head. She was puzzled.

  'Then, I suppose … it's from your own interest in the matter?' she asked suddenly. Aratov could not find an answer for a minute.

  'Through sympathy, from respect for talent,' he said at last.

  The word 'respect' pleased Madame Milovidov. 'Eh!' she pronounced with a sigh … 'I'm her mother, any way—and terribly I'm grieved for her…. Such a calamity all of a sudden!… But I must say it: a crazy girl she always was—and what a way to meet with her end! Such a disgrace…. Only fancy what it was for a mother? we must be thankful indeed that they gave her a Christian burial….' Madame Milovidov crossed herself. 'From a child up she minded no one—she left her parent's house … and at last—sad to say!—turned actress! Every one knows I never shut my doors upon her; I loved her, to be sure! I was her mother, any way! she'd no need to live with strangers … or to go begging!…' Here the widow shed tears … 'But if you, my good sir,' she began, again wiping her eyes with the ends of her kerchief, 'really have any idea of the kind, and you are not intending anything dishonourable to us, but on the contrary, wish to show us respect, you'd better talk a bit with my other daughter. She'll tell you everything better than I can…. Annotchka! called Madame Milovidov, 'Annotchka, come here! Here is a worthy gentleman from Moscow wants to have a talk about Katia!'

  There was a sound of something moving in the next room; but no one appeared. 'Annotchka!' the widow called again, 'Anna Semyonovna! come here, I tell you!'

  The door softly opened, and in the doorway appeared a girl no longer very young, looking ill—and plain—but with very soft and mournful eyes. Aratov got up from his seat to meet her, and introduced himself, mentioning his friend Kupfer. 'Ah! Fyodor Fedoritch?' the girl articulated softly, and softly she sank into a chair.

  'Now, then, you must talk to the gentleman,' said Madam Milovidov, getting up heavily: 'he's taken trouble enough, he's come all the way from Moscow on purpose—he wants to collect information about Katia. And will you, my good sir,' she added, addressing Aratov—'excuse me … I'm going to look after my housekeeping. You can get a very good account of everything from Annotchka; she will tell you about the theatre … and all the rest of it. She is a clever girl, well educated: speaks French, and reads books, as well as her sister did. One may say indeed she gave her her education … she was older—and so she looked after it.'

  Madame Milovidov withdrew. On being left alone with Anna Semyonovna, Aratov repeated his speech to her; but realising at the first glance that he had to do with a really cultivated girl, not a typical tradesman's daughter, he went a little more into particulars and made use of different expressions; but towards the end he grew agitated, flushed and felt that his heart was throbbing. Anna listened to him in silence, her hands folded on her lap; a mournful smile never left her face … bitter grief, still fresh in its poignancy, was expressed in that smile.

  'You knew my sister?' she asked Aratov.

  'No, I did not actually know her,' he answered. 'I met her and heard her once … but one need only hear and see your sister once to …'

  'Do you wish to write her biography?' Anna questioned him again.

  Aratov had not expected this inquiry; however, he replied promptly, 'Why not? But above all, I wanted to acquaint the public …'

  Anna stopped him by a motion of her hand.

  'What is the object of that? The public caused her plenty of suffering as it is; and indeed Katia had only just begun life. But if you yourself—(Anna looked at him and smiled again a smile as mournful but more friendly … as though she were saying to herself, Yes, you make me feel I can trust you) … if you yourself feel such interest in her, let me ask you to come and see us this afternoon … after dinner. I can't just now … so suddenly … I will collect my strength … I will make an effort … Ah, I loved her too much!'<
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  Anna turned away; she was on the point of bursting into sobs.

  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.

  XIII

  Aratov went back the same day to the Milovidovs and spent three whole hours in conversation with Anna Semyonovna. Madame Milovidov was in the habit of lying down directly after dinner—at two o'clock—and resting till evening tea at seven. Aratov's talk with Clara's sister was not exactly a conversation; she did almost all the talking, at first with hesitation, with embarrassment, then with a warmth that refused to be stifled. It was obvious that she had adored her sister. The confidence Aratov had inspired in her grew and strengthened; she was no longer stiff; twice she even dropped a few silent tears before him. He seemed to her to be worthy to hear an unreserved account of all she knew and felt … in her own secluded life nothing of this sort had ever happened before!… As for him … he drank in every word she uttered.

  This was what he learned … much of it of course, half-said … much he filled in for himself.

  In her early years, Clara had undoubtedly been a disagreeable child; and even as a girl, she had not been much gentler; self-willed, hot-tempered, sensitive, she had never got on with her father, whom she despised for his drunkenness and incapacity. He felt this and never forgave her for it. A gift for music showed itself early in her; her father gave it no encouragement, acknowledging no art but painting, in which he himself was so conspicuously unsuccessful though it was the means of support of himself and his family. Her mother Clara loved,… but in a careless way, as though she were her nurse; her sister she adored, though she fought with her and had even bitten her…. It is true she fell on her knees afterwards and kissed the place she had bitten. She was all fire, all passion, and all contradiction; revengeful and kind; magnanimous and vindictive; she believed in fate—and did not believe in God (these words Anna whispered with horror); she loved everything beautiful, but never troubled herself about her own looks, and dressed anyhow; she could not bear to have young men courting her, and yet in books she only read the pages which treated of love; she did not care to be liked, did not like caresses, but never forgot a caress, just as she never forgot a slight; she was afraid of death and killed herself! She used to say sometimes, 'Such a one as I want I shall never meet … and no other will I have!' 'Well, but if you meet him?' Anna would ask. 'If I meet him … I will capture him.' 'And if he won't let himself be captured?' 'Well, then … I will make an end of myself. It will prove I am no good.' Clara's father—he used sometimes when drunk to ask his wife, 'Who got you your blackbrowed she-devil there? Not I!'—Clara's father, anxious to get her off his hands as soon as possible, betrothed her to a rich young shopkeeper, a great blockhead, one of the so-called 'refined' sort. A fortnight before the wedding-day—she was only sixteen at the time—she went up to her betrothed, her arms folded and her fingers drumming on her elbows—her favourite position—and suddenly gave him a slap on his rosy cheek with her large powerful hand! He jumped and merely gaped; it must be said he was head over ears in love with her…. He asked: 'What's that for?' She laughed scornfully and walked off. 'I was there in the room,' Anna related, 'I saw it all, I ran after her and said to her, "Katia, why did you do that, really?" And she answered me: "If he'd been a real man he would have punished me, but he's no more pluck than a drowned hen! And then he asks, 'What's that for?' If he loves me, and doesn't bear malice, he had better put up with it and not ask, 'What's that for?' I will never be anything to him—never, never!" And indeed she did not marry him. It was soon after that she made the acquaintance of that actress, and left her home. Mother cried, but father only said, "A stubborn beast is best away from the flock!" And he did not bother about her, or try to find her out. My father did not understand Katia. On the day before her flight,' added Anna, 'she almost smothered me in her embraces, and kept repeating: "I can't, I can't help it!… My heart's torn, but I can't help it! your cage is too small … it cramps my wings! And there's no escaping one's fate…."