FullReads

Anna covered her face with her hands and ceased speaking.

“Anna Semyonovna,” began Aratoff, after waiting a little: “perhaps you have heard to what the newspapers attributed….”

“To unhappy love?” interrupted Anna, removing her hands from her face with a jerk. “That is a calumny, a calumny, a lie!… My unsullied, unapproachable Katya … Katya! … and an unhappy, rejected love? And would not I have known about that?… Everybody, everybody fell in love with her … but she…. And whom could she have fallen in love with here? Who, out of all these men, was worthy of her? Who had attained to that ideal of honour, uprightness, purity,–most of all, purity,–which she constantly held before her, in spite of all her defects?… Reject her … her….”

Anna’s voice broke…. Her fingers trembled slightly. Suddenly she flushed scarlet all over … flushed with indignation, and at that moment–and only at that moment–did she resemble her sister.

Aratoff attempted to apologise.

“Listen,” broke in Anna once more:–“I insist upon it that you shall not believe that calumny yourself, and that you shall dissipate it, if possible! Here, you wish to write an article about her, or something of that sort:–here is an opportunity for you to defend her memory! That is why I am talking so frankly with you. Listen: Katya left a diary….”

Aratoff started.–“A diary,” he whispered.

“Yes, a diary … that is to say, a few pages only.–Katya was not fond of writing … for whole months together she did not write at all … and her letters were so short! But she was always, always truthful, she never lied…. Lie, forsooth, with her vanity! I … I will show you that diary! You shall see for yourself whether it contains a single hint of any such unhappy love!”

Anna hastily drew from the table-drawer a thin copy-book, about ten pages in length, no more, and offered it to Aratoff. The latter grasped it eagerly, recognised the irregular, bold handwriting,–the handwriting of that anonymous letter,–opened it at random, and began at the following lines:

“Moscow–Tuesday … June. I sang and recited at a literary morning. To-day is a significant day for me. It must decide my fate.” (These words were doubly underlined.) “Once more I have seen….” Here followed several lines which had been carefully blotted out.–And then: “No! no! no!… I must return to my former idea, if only….”

Aratoff dropped the hand in which he held the book, and his head sank quietly on his breast.

“Read!” cried Anna.–“Why don’t you read? Read from the beginning…. You can read the whole of it in five minutes, though this diary extends over two whole years. In Kazan she wrote nothing….”

Aratoff slowly rose from his chair, and fairly crashed down on his knees before Anna!

She was simply petrified with amazement and terror.

“Give … give me this diary,” said Aratoff in a fainting voice.–“Give it to me … and the photograph … you must certainly have another–but I will return the diary to you…. But I must, I must….”

In his entreaty, in the distorted features of his face there was something so despairing that it even resembled wrath, suffering…. And in reality he was suffering. It seemed as though he had not been able to foresee that such a calamity would descend upon him, and was excitedly begging to be spared, to be saved….

“Give it to me,” he repeated.

“But … you … you were not in love with my sister?” said Anna at last.

Aratoff continued to kneel.

“I saw her twice in all … believe me!… and if I had not been impelled by causes which I myself cannot clearly either understand or explain … if some power that is stronger than I were not upon me…. I would not have asked you…. I would not have come hither…. I must … I ought … why, you said yourself that I was bound to restore her image!”

“And you were not in love with my sister?” asked Anna for the second time.