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Clara’s father … (he sometimes asked his wife when he was drunk: “Who was the father of that black-visaged little devil of thine?–I was not!”)–Clara’s father, in the endeavour to get her off his hands as promptly as possible, undertook to betroth her to a wealthy young merchant, a very stupid fellow,–one of the “cultured” sort. Two weeks before the wedding (she was only sixteen years of age), she walked up to her betrothed, folded her arms, and drumming with her fingers on her elbows (her favourite pose), she suddenly dealt him a blow, bang! on his rosy cheek with her big, strong hand! He sprang to his feet, and merely gasped,–it must be stated that he was dead in love with her…. He asked: “What is that for?” She laughed and left the room.–“I was present in the room,” narrated Anna, “and was a witness. I ran after her and said to her: ‘Good gracious, Katya, why didst thou do that?’–But she answered me: ‘If he were a real man he would have thrashed me, but as it is, he is a wet hen!’ And he asks what it is for, to boot. If he loved me and did not avenge himself, then let him bear it and not ask: ‘what is that for?’ He’ll never get anything of me, unto ages of ages!’ And so she did not marry him. Soon afterward she made the acquaintance of that actress, and left our house. My mother wept, but my father only said: ‘Away with the refractory goat from the flock!’ and would take no trouble, or try to hunt her up. Father did not understand Clara. On the eve of her flight,” added Anna, “she almost strangled me in her embrace, and kept repeating: ‘I cannot! I cannot do otherwise!… My heart may break in two, but I cannot! our cage is too small … it is not large enough for my wings! And one cannot escape his fate'”….

“After that,” remarked Anna, “we rarely saw each other…. When father died she came to us for a couple of days, took nothing from the inheritance, and again disappeared. She found it oppressive with us…. I saw that. Then she returned to Kazan as an actress.”

Aratoff began to interrogate Anna concerning the theatre, the parts in which Clara had appeared, her success…. Anna answered in detail, but with the same sad, although animated enthusiasm. She even showed Aratoff a photographic portrait, which represented Clara in the costume of one of her parts. In the portrait she was looking to one side, as though turning away from the spectators; the ribbon intertwined with her thick hair fell like a serpent on her bare arm. Aratoff gazed long at that portrait, thought it a good likeness, inquired whether Clara had not taken part in public readings, and learned that she had not; that she required the excitement of the theatre, of the stage … but another question was burning on his lips.

“Anna Semyonovna!” he exclaimed at last, not loudly, but with peculiar force, “tell me, I entreat you, why she … why she made up her mind to that frightful step?”

Anna dropped her eyes.–“I do not know!” she said, after the lapse of several minutes.–“God is my witness, I do not know!” she continued impetuously, perceiving that Aratoff had flung his hands apart as though he did not believe her…. “From the very time she arrived here she seemed to be thoughtful, gloomy. Something must infallibly have happened to her in Moscow, which I was not able to divine! But, on the contrary, on that fatal day, she seemed … if not more cheerful, at any rate more tranquil than usual. I did not even have any forebodings,” added Anna with a bitter smile, as though reproaching herself for that.

“You see,” she began again, “it seemed to have been written in Katya’s fate, that she should be unhappy. She was convinced of it herself from her early youth. She would prop her head on her hand, meditate, and say: ‘I shall not live long!’ She had forebodings. Just imagine, she even saw beforehand,–sometimes in a dream, sometimes in ordinary wise,–what was going to happen to her! ‘I cannot live as I wish, so I will not live at all,’ … was her adage.–‘Our life is in our own hands, you know!’ And she proved it.”