The audience set to applauding and recalling her in
desperate fashion.... One theological student,—a
Little Russian,—among others, bellowed
so loudly: “Muiluitch! Muiluitch!"[58]
that his neighbour politely and sympathetically begged
him to “spare himself, as a future proto-deacon!"[59]
But Aratoff immediately rose and betook himself to
the entrance. Kupfer overtook him....
“Good gracious, whither art thou going?”
he yelled:—“I’ll introduce
thee to Clara if thou wishest—shall I?”
“No, thanks,” hastily replied Aratoff,
and set off homeward almost at a run.
Strange emotions, which were not clear even to himself,
agitated him. In reality, Clara’s recitation
had not altogether pleased him either ... altogether
he could not tell precisely why. It had troubled
him, that recitation, it had seemed to him harsh,
unmelodious.... Somehow it seemed to have broken
something within him, to have exerted some sort of
violence. And those importunate, persistent, almost
insolent glances—what had caused them?
What did they signify?
Aratoff’s modesty did permit him even a momentary
thought that he might have pleased that strange young
girl, that he might have inspired her with a sentiment
akin to love, to passion!... And he had imagined
to himself quite otherwise that as yet unknown woman,
that young girl, to whom he would surrender himself
wholly, and who would love him, become his bride,
his wife.... He rarely dreamed of this: he
was chaste both in body and soul;—but the
pure image which rose up in his imagination at such
times was evoked under another form,—the
form of his dead mother, whom he barely remembered,
though he cherished her portrait like a sacred treasure.
That portrait had been painted in water-colours, in
a rather inartistic manner, by a friendly neighbour,
but the likeness was striking, as every one averred.
The woman, the young girl, whom as yet he did not
so much as venture to expect, must possess just such
a tender profile, just such kind, bright eyes, just
such silky hair, just such a smile, just such a clear
understanding....
But this was a black-visaged, swarthy creature, with
coarse hair, and a moustache on her lip; she must
certainly be bad-tempered, giddy.... “A
gipsy” (Aratoff could not devise a worse expression)—what
was she to him?
And in the meantime, Aratoff was unable to banish
from his mind that black-visaged gipsy, whose singing
and recitation and even whose personal appearance
were disagreeable to him. He was perplexed, he
was angry with himself. Not long before this
he had read Walter Scott’s romance “Saint
Ronan’s Well” (there was a complete edition
of Walter Scott’s works in the library of his
father, who revered the English romance-writer as
a serious, almost a learned author). The heroine
of that romance is named Clara Mowbray. A poet
of the ’40’s, Krasoff, wrote a poem about
her, which wound up with the words:
