He dreamed that he was in a rich manor-house of which he was the owner. He had lately bought both the house and the estate attached to it. And he kept thinking, "It"s nice, very nice now, but evil is coming!" Beside him moved to and fro a little tiny man, his steward; he kept laughing, bowing, and trying to show Aratov how admirably everything was arranged in his house and his estate. "This way, pray, this way, pray," he kept repeating, chuckling at every word; "kindly look how prosperous everything is with you! Look at the horses ... what splendid horses!" And Aratov saw a row of immense horses. They were standing in their stalls with their backs to him; their manes and tails were magnificent ... but as soon as Aratov went near, the horses" heads turned towards him, and they showed their teeth viciously. "It"s very nice," Aratov thought! "but evil is coming!" "This way, pray, this way," the steward repeated again, "pray come into the garden: look what fine apples you have!" The apples certainly were fine, red, and round; but as soon as Aratov looked at them, they withered and fell ... "Evil is coming," he thought. "And here is the lake," lisped the steward, "isn"t it blue and smooth? And here"s a little boat of gold ...
will you get into it?... it floats of itself." "I won"t get into it,"
thought Aratov, "evil is coming!" and for all that he got into the boat. At the bottom lay huddled up a little creature like a monkey; it was holding in its paws a gla.s.s full of a dark liquid. "Pray don"t be uneasy," the steward shouted from the bank ... "It"s of no consequence! It"s death!
Good luck to you!" The boat darted swiftly along ... but all of a sudden a hurricane came swooping down on it, not like the hurricane of the night before, soft and noiseless--no; a black, awful, howling hurricane!
Everything was confusion. And in the midst of the whirling darkness Aratov saw Clara in a stage-dress; she was lifting a gla.s.s to her lips, listening to shouts of "Bravo! bravo!" in the distance, and some coa.r.s.e voice shouted in Aratov"s ear: "Ah! did you think it would all end in a farce? No; it"s a tragedy! a tragedy!"
Trembling all over, Aratov awoke. In the room it was not dark.... A faint light streamed in from somewhere, and showed every thing in the gloom and stillness. Aratov did not ask himself whence this light came.... He felt one thing only: Clara was there, in that room ... he felt her presence ...
he was again and for ever in her power!
The cry broke from his lips, "Clara, are you here?"
"Yes!" sounded distinctly in the midst of the lighted, still room.
Aratov inaudibly repeated his question....
"Yes!" he heard again.
"Then I want to see you!" he cried, and he jumped out of bed.
For some instants he stood in the same place, pressing his bare feet on the chill floor. His eyes strayed about. "Where? where?" his lips were murmuring....
Nothing to be seen, not a sound to be heard.... He looked round him, and noticed that the faint light that filled the room came from a night-light, shaded by a sheet of paper and set in a corner, probably by Platosha while he was asleep. He even discerned the smell of incense ... also, most likely, the work of her hands.
He hurriedly dressed himself: to remain in bed, to sleep, was not to be thought of. Then he took his stand in the middle of the room, and folded his arms. The sense of Clara"s presence was stronger in him than it had ever been.
And now he began to speak, not loudly, but with solemn deliberation, as though he were uttering an incantation.
"Clara," he began, "if you are truly here, if you see me, if you hear me--show yourself!... If the power which I feel over me is truly your power, show yourself! If you understand how bitterly I repent that I did not understand you, that I repelled you--show yourself! If what I have heard was truly your voice; if the feeling overmastering me is love; if you are now convinced that I love you, I, who till now have neither loved nor known any woman; if you know that since your death I have come to love you pa.s.sionately, inconsolably; if you do not want me to go mad,--show yourself, Clara!"
Aratov had hardly uttered this last word, when all at once he felt that some one was swiftly approaching him from behind--as that day on the boulevard--and laying a hand on his shoulder. He turned round, and saw no one. But the sense of _her_ presence had grown so distinct, so unmistakable, that once more he looked hurriedly about him....
What was that? On an easy-chair, two paces from him, sat a woman, all in black. Her head was turned away, as in the stereoscope.... It was she! It was Clara! But what a stern, sad face!
Aratov slowly sank on his knees. Yes; he was right, then. He felt neither fear nor delight, not even astonishment.... His heart even began to beat more quietly. He had one sense, one feeling, "Ah! at last! at last!"
"Clara," he began, in a faint but steady voice, "why do you not look at me?
I know that it is you ... but I may fancy my imagination has created an image like _that one_ ... "--he pointed towards the stereoscope--"prove to me that it is you.... Turn to me, look at me, Clara!"
Clara"s hand slowly rose ... and fell again.
"Clara! Clara! turn to me!"
And Clara"s head slowly turned, her closed lids opened, and her dark eyes fastened upon Aratov.
He fell back a little, and uttered a single, long-drawn-out, trembling "Ah!"
Clara gazed fixedly at him ... but her eyes, her features, retained their former mournfully stern, almost displeased expression. With just that expression on her face she had come on to the platform on the day of the literary matinee, before she caught sight of Aratov. And, just as then, she suddenly flushed, her face brightened, her eyes kindled, and a joyful, triumphant smile parted her lips....
"I have come!" cried Aratov. "You have conquered.... Take me! I am yours, and you are mine!"
He flew to her; he tried to kiss those smiling, triumphant lips, and he kissed them. He felt their burning touch: he even felt the moist chill of her teeth: and a cry of triumph rang through the half-dark room.
Platonida Ivanovna, running in, found him in a swoon. He was on his knees; his head was lying on the arm-chair; his outstretched arms hung powerless; his pale face was radiant with the intoxication of boundless bliss.
Platonida Ivanovna fairly dropped to the ground beside him; she put her arms round him, faltered, "Yasha! Yasha, darling! Yasha, dearest!" tried to lift him in her bony arms ... he did not stir. Then Platonida Ivanovna fell to screaming in a voice unlike her own. The servant ran in. Together they somehow roused him, began throwing water over him--even took it from the holy lamp before the holy picture....
He came to himself. But in response to his aunt"s questions he only smiled, and with such an ecstatic face that she was more alarmed than ever, and kept crossing first herself and then him.... Aratov, at last, put aside her hand, and, still with the same ecstatic expression of face, said: "Why, Platosha, what is the matter with you?"
"What is the matter with you, Yasha darling?"
"With me? I am happy ... happy, Platosha ... that"s what"s the matter with me. And now I want to lie down, to sleep...." He tried to get up, but felt such a sense of weakness in his legs, and in his whole body, that he could not, without the help of his aunt and the servant, undress and get into bed. But he fell asleep very quickly, still with the same look of blissful triumph on his face. Only his face was very pale.
XVIII
When Platonida Ivanovna came in to him next morning, he was still in the same position ... but the weakness had not pa.s.sed off, and he actually preferred to remain in bed. Platonida Ivanovna did not like the pallor of his face at all. "Lord, have mercy on us! what is it?" she thought; "not a drop of blood in his face, refuses broth, lies there and smiles, and keeps declaring he"s perfectly well!" He refused breakfast too. "What is the matter with you, Yasha?" she questioned him; "do you mean to lie in bed all day?" "And what if I did?" Aratov answered gently. This very gentleness again Platonida Ivanovna did not like at all. Aratov had the air of a man who has discovered a great, very delightful secret, and is jealously guarding it and keeping it to himself. He was looking forward to the night, not impatiently, but with curiosity. "What next?" he was asking himself; "what will happen?" Astonishment, incredulity, he had ceased to feel; he did not doubt that he was in communication with Clara, that they loved one another ... that, too, he had no doubt about. Only ... what could come of such love? He recalled that kiss ... and a delicious shiver ran swiftly and sweetly through all his limbs. "Such a kiss," was his thought, "even Romeo and Juliet knew not! But next time I will be stronger.... I will master her.... She shall come with a wreath of tiny roses in her dark curls....
"But what next? We cannot live together, can we? Then must I die so as to be with her? Is it not for that she has come; and is it not _so_ she means to take me captive?
"Well; what then? If I must die, let me die. Death has no terrors for me now. It cannot, then, annihilate me? On the contrary, only _thus_ and _there_ can I be happy ... as I have not been happy in life, as she has not.... We are both pure! Oh, that kiss!"
Platonida Ivanovna was incessantly coming into Aratov"s room. She did not worry him with questions; she merely looked at him, muttered, sighed, and went out again. But he refused his dinner too: this was really too dreadful. The old lady set off to an acquaintance of hers, a district doctor, in whom she placed some confidence, simply because he did not drink and had a German wife. Aratov was surprised when she brought him in to see him; but Platonida Ivanovna so earnestly implored her darling Yashenka to allow Paramon Paramonitch (that was the doctor"s name) to examine him--if only for her sake--that Aratov consented. Paramon Paramonitch felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, asked a question, and announced at last that it was absolutely necessary for him to "auscultate" him. Aratov was in such an amiable frame of mind that he agreed to this too. The doctor delicately uncovered his chest, delicately tapped, listened, hummed and hawed, prescribed some drops and a mixture, and, above all, advised him to keep quiet and avoid any excitement. "I dare say!" thought Aratov; "that idea"s a little too late, my good friend!" "What is wrong with Yasha?" queried Platonida Ivanovna, as she slipped a three-rouble note into Paramon Paramonitch"s hand in the doorway. The district doctor, who like all modern physicians--especially those who wear a government uniform--was fond of showing off with scientific terms, announced that her nephew"s diagnosis showed all the symptoms of neurotic cardialgia, and there were febrile symptoms also. "Speak plainer, my dear sir; do," cut in Platonida Ivanovna; "don"t terrify me with your Latin; you"re not in your surgery!" "His heart"s not right," the doctor explained; "and, well--there"s a little fever too" ... and he repeated his advice as to perfect quiet and absence of excitement. "But there"s no danger, is there?" Platonida Ivanovna inquired severely ("You dare rush off into Latin again," she implied.) "No need to antic.i.p.ate any at present!"
The doctor went away ... and Platonida Ivanovna grieved.... She sent to the surgery, though, for the medicine, which Aratov would not take, in spite of her entreaties. He refused any herb-tea too. "And why are you so uneasy, dear?" he said to her; "I a.s.sure you, I"m at this moment the sanest and happiest man in the whole world!" Platonida Ivanovna could only shake her head. Towards evening he grew rather feverish; and still he insisted that she should not stay in his room, but should go to sleep in her own.
Platonida Ivanovna obeyed; but she did not undress, and did not lie down.
She sat in an arm-chair, and was all the while listening and murmuring her prayers.
She was just beginning to doze, when suddenly she was awakened by a terrible piercing shriek. She jumped up, rushed into Aratov"s room, and as on the night before, found him lying on the floor.
But he did not come to himself as on the previous night, in spite of all they could do. He fell the same night into a high fever, complicated by failure of the heart.
A few days later he pa.s.sed away.
A strange circ.u.mstance attended his second fainting-fit. When they lifted him up and laid him on his bed, in his clenched right hand they found a small tress of a woman"s dark hair. Where did this lock of hair come from?
Anna Semyonovna had such a lock of hair left by Clara; but what could induce her to give Aratov a relic so precious to her? Could she have put it somewhere in the diary, and not have noticed it when she lent the book?
In the delirium that preceded his death, Aratov spoke of himself as Romeo ... after the poison; spoke of marriage, completed and perfect; of his knowing now what rapture meant. Most terrible of all for Platosha was the minute when Aratov, coming a little to himself, and seeing her beside his bed, said to her, "Aunt, what are you crying for?--because I must die? But don"t you know that love is stronger than death?... Death! death! where is thy sting? You should not weep, but rejoice, even as I rejoice...."
And once more on the face of the dying man shone out the rapturous smile, which gave the poor old woman such cruel pain.
PHANTOMS
"_One instant ... and the fairy tale is over, And once again the actual fills the soul_ ..."--A. FET.