h 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:

"Unhappy Clara! foolish Clara!
Unhappy Clara Mowbray!"

Aratoff was acquainted with this poem also.... And now these words kept
incessantly recurring to his memory.... "Unhappy Clara! foolish
Clara!..." (That was why he had been so surprised when Kupfer mentioned
Clara Militch to him.) Even Platosha noticed, not precisely a change in
Yakoff's frame of mind--as a matter of fact, no change had taken
place--but something wrong about his looks, in his remarks. She
cautiously interrogated him about the literary morning at which he had
been present;--she whispered, sighed, scrutinised him from in front,
scrutinised him from the side, from behind--and suddenly, slapping her
hands on her thighs, she exclaimed:

"Well, Yashal--I see what the trouble is!"

"What dost thou mean?" queried Aratoff in his turn.

"Thou hast certainly met at that morning some one of those
tail-draggers" (that was what Platonida Ivanovna called all ladies who
wore fashionable gowns).... "She has a comely face--and she puts on airs
like _this_,--and twists her face like _this_" (Platosha depicted all
this in her face), "and she makes her eyes go round like this...." (she
mimicked this also, describing huge circles in the air with her
forefinger).... "And it made an impression on thee, because thou art not
used to it.... But that does not signify anything, Yasha ... it does not
signify anything! Drink a cup of herb-tea when thou goest to bed, and
that will be the end of it!... Lord, help!"

Platosha ceased speaking and took herself off.... She probably had never
made such a long and animated speech befo