And too, he thought, in Mitskevitch: ’I
will love thee to the end of time ... and beyond it!’
And an English writer had said: ’Love is
stronger than death.’ The text from Scripture
produced particular effect on Aratov.... He tried
to find the place where the words occurred....
He had no Bible; he went to ask Platosha for one.
She wondered, she brought out, however, a very old
book in a warped leather binding, with copper clasps,
covered with candle wax, and handed it over to Aratov.
He bore it off to his own room, but for a long time
he could not find the text ... he stumbled, however,
on another: ’Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’
(S. John xv. 13).
He thought: ’That’s not right.
It ought to be: Greater power hath no
man.’
’But if she did not lay down her life for me
at all? If she made an end of herself simply
because life had become a burden to her? What
if, after all, she did not come to that meeting for
anything to do with love at all?’
But at that instant he pictured to himself Clara before
their parting on the boulevard.... He remembered
the look of pain on her face, and the tears and the
words, ‘Ah, you understood nothing!’
No! he could have no doubt why and for whom she had
laid down her life....
So passed that whole day till night-time.
Aratov went to bed early, without feeling specially
sleepy, but he hoped to find repose in bed. The
strained condition of his nerves brought about an
exhaustion far more unbearable than the bodily fatigue
of the journey and the railway. However, exhausted
as he was, he could not get to sleep. He tried
to read ... but the lines danced before his eyes.
He put out the candle, and darkness reigned in his
room. But still he lay sleepless, with his eyes
shut.... And it began to seem to him some one
was whispering in his ear.... ‘The beating
of the heart, the pulse of the blood,’ he thought....
But the whisper passed into connected speech.
Some one was talking in Russian hurriedly, plaintively,
and indistinctly. Not one separate word could
he catch.... But it was the voice of Clara.
Aratov opened his eyes, raised himself, leaned on
his elbow.... The voice grew fainter, but kept
up its plaintive, hurried talk, indistinct as before....
It was unmistakably Clara’s voice.
Unseen fingers ran light arpeggios up and down the
keys of the piano ... then the voice began again.
More prolonged sounds were audible ... as it were
moans ... always the same over and over again.
Then apart from the rest the words began to stand
out ... ‘Roses ... roses ... roses....’
‘Roses,’ repeated Aratov in a whisper.
’Ah, yes! it’s the roses I saw on that
woman’s head in the dream.’... ‘Roses,’
he heard again.
‘Is that you?’ Aratov asked in the same
whisper. The voice suddenly ceased.
