ould not work, but even he himself did not know what he wanted. Now he
was expecting Kupfer again (he suspected that it was precisely from
Kupfer that Clara had obtained his address ... and who else could have
"talked a great deal" about him?); again he wondered whether his
acquaintance with her was to end in that way? ... again he imagined that
she would write him another letter; again he asked himself whether he
ought not to write her a letter, in which he might explain everything to
her,---as he did not wish to leave an unpleasant impression of
himself.... But, in point of fact, _what_ was he to explain?--Now he
aroused in himself something very like disgust for her, for her
persistence, her boldness; again that indescribably touching face
presented itself to him and her irresistible voice made itself heard;
and yet again he recalled her singing, her recitation--and did not know
whether he was right in his wholesale condemnation.--In one word: he was
a tousled man! At last he became bored with all this and decided, as the
saying is, "to take it upon himself" and erase all that affair, as it
undoubtedly was interfering with his avocations and disturbing his peace
of mind.--He did not find it so easy to put his resolution into
effect.... More than a week elapsed before he got back again into his
ordinary rut. Fortunately, Kupfer did not present himself at all, any
more than if he had not been in Moscow. Not long before the "affair"
Aratoff had begun to busy himself with painting for photographic ends;
he devoted himself to this with redoubled zeal.

Thus, imperceptibly, with a few "relapses" as the doctors express it,
consisting, for example in the fact that he once came very near going to
call on the Princess, two weeks ... three weeks passed ... and Aratoff
became once more the Aratoff of old. Only deep down, under the surface
of his life, something heavy and dark secretly accompanied him in all
his comings and goings. Thus does a large fish which has just been
hooked, but has not yet been drawn out, swim along the bottom of a deep
river under the very boat wherein sits the fisherman with his stout rod
in hand.

And lo! one day as he was skimming over some not quite fresh numbers of
the _Moscow News,_ Aratoff hit upon the following correspondence:

"With great sorrow," wrote a certain local literary man from Kazan, "we
insert in our theatrical chronicle the news of the sudden death of our
gifted actress, Clara Mili