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
