'Where?' he asked.
'Here!' he heard the wailing answer. 'Here!'
Aratov woke up.
He sat up in bed, lighted the candle that stood on the little table by his bedside—but did not get up—and sat a long while, chill all over, slowly looking about him. It seemed to him as if something had happened to him since he went to bed; that something had taken possession of him … something was in control of him. 'But is it possible?' he murmured unconsciously. 'Does such a power really exist?'
He could not stay in his bed. He quickly dressed, and till morning he was pacing up and down his room. And, strange to say, of Clara he never thought for a moment, and did not think of her, because he had decided to go next day to Kazan!
He thought only of the journey, of how to manage it, and what to take with him, and how he would investigate and find out everything there, and would set his mind at rest. 'If I don't go,' he reasoned with himself, 'why, I shall go out of my mind!' He was afraid of that, afraid of his nerves. He was convinced that when once he had seen everything there with his own eyes, every obsession would vanish like that nightmare. 'And it will be a week lost over the journey,' he thought; 'what is a week? else I shall never shake it off.'
The rising sun shone into his room; but the light of day did not drive away the shadows of the night that lay upon him, and did not change his resolution.
Platosha almost had a fit when he informed her of his intention. She positively sat down on the ground … her legs gave way beneath her. 'To Kazan? why to Kazan?' she murmured, her dim eyes round with astonishment. She would not have been more surprised if she had been told that her Yasha was going to marry the baker woman next door, or was starting for America. 'Will you be long in Kazan?' 'I shall be back in a week,' answered Aratov, standing with his back half-turned to his aunt, who was still sitting on the floor.
Platonida Ivanovna tried to protest more, but Aratov answered her in an utterly unexpected and unheard-of way: 'I'm not a child,' he shouted, and he turned pale all over, his lips trembled, and his eyes glittered wrathfully. 'I'm twenty-six, I know what I'm about, I'm free to do what I like! I suffer no one … Give me the money for the journey, pack my box with my clothes and linen … and don't torture me! I'll be back in a week, Platosha,' he added, in a somewhat softer tone.
Platosha got up, sighing and groaning, and, without further protest, crawled to her room. Yasha had alarmed her. 'I've no head on my shoulders,' she told the cook, who was helping her to pack Yasha's things; 'no head at all, but a hive full of bees all a-buzz and a-hum! He's going off to Kazan, my good soul, to Ka-a-zan!' The cook, who had observed their dvornik the previous evening talking for a long time with a police officer, would have liked to inform her mistress of this circumstance, but did not dare, and only reflected, 'To Kazan! if only it's nowhere farther still!' Platonida Ivanovna was so upset that she did not even utter her usual prayer. 'In such a calamity the Lord God Himself cannot aid us!'
The same day Aratov set off for Kazan.
XII
He had no sooner reached that town and taken a room in a hotel than he rushed off to find out the house of the widow Milovidov. During the whole journey he had been in a sort of benumbed condition, which had not, however, prevented him from taking all the necessary steps, changing at Nizhni-Novgorod from the railway to the steamer, getting his meals at the stations etc., etc. He was convinced as before that there everything would be solved; and therefore he drove away every sort of memory and reflection, confining himself to one thing, the mental rehearsal of the speech, in which he would lay before the family of Clara Militch the real cause of his visit. And now at last he reached the goal of his efforts, and sent up his name. He was admitted … with perplexity and alarm—still he was admitted.
The house of the widow Milovidov turned out to be exactly as Kupfer had described it; and the widow herself really was like one of the tradesmen's wives in Ostrovsky, though the widow of an official; her husband had held his post under government. Not without some difficulty, Aratov, after a preliminary apology for his boldness, for the strangeness of his visit, delivered the speech he had prepared, explaining that he was anxious to collect all the information possible about the gifted artist so early lost, that he was not led to this by idle curiosity, but by profound sympathy for her talent, of which he was the devoted admirer (he said that, devoted admirer!) that, in fact, it would be a sin to leave the public in ignorance of what it had lost—and why its hopes were not realised. Madame Milovidov did not interrupt Aratov; she did not understand very well what this unknown visitor was saying to her, and merely opened her eyes rather wide and rolled them upon him, thinking, however, that he had a quiet respectable air, was well dressed … and not a pickpocket … hadn't come to beg.
'You are speaking of Katia?' she inquired, directly Aratov was silent.
'Yes … of your daughter.'
'And you have come from Moscow for this?'
'Yes, from Moscow.'
'Only on this account?'
'Yes.'
Madame Milovidov gave herself a sudden shake. 'Why, are you an author? Do you write for the newspapers?'
'No, I'm not an author—and hitherto I have not written for the newspapers.'
The widow bowed her head. She was puzzled.
'Then, I suppose … it's from your own interest in the matter?' she asked suddenly. Aratov could not find an answer for a minute.
'Through sympathy, from respect for talent,' he said at last.
The word 'respect' pleased Madame Milovidov. 'Eh!' she pronounced with a sigh … 'I'm her mother, any way—and terribly I'm grieved for her…. Such a calamity all of a sudden!… But I must say it: a crazy girl she always was—and what a way to meet with her end! Such a disgrace…. Only fancy what it was for a mother? we must be thankful indeed that they gave her a Christian burial….' Madame Milovidov crossed herself. 'From a child up she minded no one—she left her parent's house … and at last—sad to say!—turned actress! Every one knows I never shut my doors upon her; I loved her, to be sure! I was her mother, any way! she'd no need to live with strangers … or to go begging!…' Here the widow shed tears … 'But if you, my good sir,' she began, again wiping her eyes with the ends of her kerchief, 'really have any idea of the kind, and you are not intending anything dishonourable to us, but on the contrary, wish to show us respect, you'd better talk a bit with my other daughter. She'll tell you everything better than I can…. Annotchka! called Madame Milovidov, 'Annotchka, come here! Here is a worthy gentleman from Moscow wants to have a talk about Katia!'
There was a sound of something moving in the next room; but no one appeared. 'Annotchka!' the widow called again, 'Anna Semyonovna! come here, I tell you!'
The door softly opened, and in the doorway appeared a girl no longer very young, looking ill—and plain—but with very soft and mournful eyes. Aratov got up from his seat to meet her, and introduced himself, mentioning his friend Kupfer. 'Ah! Fyodor Fedoritch?' the girl articulated softly, and softly she sank into a chair.
'Now, then, you must talk to the gentleman,' said Madam Milovidov, getting up heavily: 'he's taken trouble enough, he's come all the way from Moscow on purpose—he wants to collect information about Katia. And will you, my good sir,' she added, addressing Aratov—'excuse me … I'm going to look after my housekeeping. You can get a very good account of everything from Annotchka; she will tell you about the theatre … and all the rest of it. She is a clever girl, well educated: speaks French, and reads books, as well as her sister did. One may say indeed she gave her her education … she was older—and so she looked after it.'