In her youth Clara had been, without doubt, a disagreeable child; and as a young girl she had been only a little softer:  self-willed, hot-tempered, vain, she had not got on particularly well with her father, whom she despised for his drunkenness and incapacity.  He was conscious of this and did not pardon it in her.  Her musical faculties showed themselves at an early age; her father repressed them, recognising painting as the sole art,—­wherein he himself had had so little success, but which had nourished him and his family.  Clara had loved her mother ... in a careless way, as she would have loved a nurse; she worshipped her sister, although she squabbled with her, and bit her....  It is true that afterward she had been wont to go down on her knees before her and kiss the bitten places.  She was all fire, all passion, and all contradiction:  vengeful and kind-hearted, magnanimous and rancorous; “she believed in Fate, and did not believe in God” (these words Anna whispered with terror); she loved everything that was beautiful, and dressed herself at haphazard; she could not endure to have young men pay court to her, but in books she read only those pages where love was the theme; she did not care to please, she did not like petting and never forgot caresses as she never forgot offences; she was afraid of death, and she had killed herself!  She had been wont to say sometimes, “I do not meet the sort of man I want—­and the others I will not have!”—­“Well, and what if you should meet the right sort?” Anna had asked her.—­“If I do ...  I shall take him.”—­“But what if he will not give himself?”—­“Well, then ...  I will make an end of myself.  It will mean that I am good for nothing.”

Clara’s father ... (he sometimes asked his wife when he was drunk:  “Who was the father of that black-visaged little devil of thine?—­I was not!")—­Clara’s father, in the endeavour to get her off his hands as promptly as possible, undertook to betroth her to a wealthy young merchant, a very stupid fellow,—­one of the “cultured” sort.  Two weeks before the wedding (she was only sixteen years of age), she walked up to her betrothed, folded her arms, and drumming with her fingers on her elbows (her favourite pose), she suddenly dealt him a blow, bang! on his rosy cheek with her big, strong hand!  He sprang to his feet, and merely gasped,—­it must be stated that he was dead in love with her....  He asked:  “What is that for?” She laughed and left the room.—­“I was present in the room,” narrated Anna, “and was a witness.  I ran after her and said to her:  ’Good gracious, Katya, why didst thou do that?’—­But she answered me:  ’If he were a real man he would have thrashed me, but as it is, he is a wet hen!’ And he asks what it is for, to boot.  If he loved me and did not avenge himself, then let him bear it and not ask:  ‘what is that for?’ He’ll never get anything of me, unto ages of ages!’ And so she did not marry him.  Soon afterward she made the acquaintance of that actress,