Aratoff opened his eyes, rose up in bed, propped himself on his elbows....  The voice grew fainter, but continued its plaintive, hurried, unintelligible speech as before....

It was indubitably Clara’s voice!

Some one’s fingers ran over the keys of the piano in light arpeggios....  Then the voice began to speak again.  More prolonged sounds made themselves audible ... like moans ... always the same.  And then words began to detach themselves....

“Roses ... roses ... roses."....

“Roses,” repeated Aratoff in a whisper.—­

“Akh, yes!  The roses which I saw on the head of that woman in my dream....”

“Roses,” was audible again.

“Is it thou?” asked Aratoff, whispering as before.

The voice suddenly ceased.

Aratoff waited ... waited—­and dropped his head on his pillow.  “A hallucination of hearing,” he thought.  “Well, and what if ... what if she really is here, close to me?...  What if I were to see her, would I be frightened?  But why should I be frightened?  Why should I rejoice?  Possibly because it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal.—­But, however, even if I were to see anything, that also might be a hallucination of the sight"....

Nevertheless he lighted his candle, and shot a glance over the whole room not without some trepidation ... and descried nothing unusual in it.  He rose, approached the stereoscope ... and there again was the same grey doll, with eyes which gazed to one side.  The feeling of alarm in Aratoff was replaced by one of vexation.  He had been, as it were, deceived in his expectations ... and those same expectations appeared to him absurd.—­“Well, this is downright stupid!” he muttered as he got back into bed, and blew out his light.  Again profound darkness reigned in the room.

Aratoff made up his mind to go to sleep this time....  But a new sensation had cropped up within him.  It seemed to him as though some one were standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and breathing in a barely perceptible manner.  He hastily turned round, opened his eyes....  But what could be seen in that impenetrable darkness?—­He began to fumble for a match on his night-stand ... and suddenly it seemed to him as though some soft, noiseless whirlwind dashed across the whole room, above him, through him—­and the words:  “’Tis I!” rang plainly in his ears. “’Tis I!  ’Tis I!...”

Several moments passed before he succeeded in lighting a match.

Again there was no one in the room, and he no longer heard anything except the violent beating of his own heart.  He drank a glass of water, and remained motionless, with his head resting on his hand.