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Nevertheless he lighted his candle, and shot a glance over the whole room not without some trepidation … and descried nothing unusual in it. He rose, approached the stereoscope … and there again was the same grey doll, with eyes which gazed to one side. The feeling of alarm in Aratoff was replaced by one of vexation. He had been, as it were, deceived in his expectations … and those same expectations appeared to him absurd.–“Well, this is downright stupid!” he muttered as he got back into bed, and blew out his light. Again profound darkness reigned in the room.

Aratoff made up his mind to go to sleep this time…. But a new sensation had cropped up within him. It seemed to him as though some one were standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and breathing in a barely perceptible manner. He hastily turned round, opened his eyes…. But what could be seen in that impenetrable darkness?–He began to fumble for a match on his night-stand … and suddenly it seemed to him as though some soft, noiseless whirlwind dashed across the whole room, above him, through him–and the words: “‘Tis I!” rang plainly in his ears. “‘Tis I! ‘Tis I!…”

Several moments passed before he succeeded in lighting a match.

Again there was no one in the room, and he no longer heard anything except the violent beating of his own heart. He drank a glass of water, and remained motionless, with his head resting on his hand.

He said to himself: “I will wait. Either this is all nonsense … or she is here. She will not play with me like a cat with a mouse!” He waited, waited a long time … so long that the hand on which he was propping his head became numb … but not a single one of his previous sensations was repeated. A couple of times his eyes closed…. He immediately opened them … at least, it seemed to him that he opened them. Gradually they became riveted on the door and so remained. The candle burned out and the room became dark once more … but the door gleamed like a long, white spot in the midst of the gloom. And lo! that spot began to move, it contracted, vanished … and in its place, on the threshold, a female form made its appearance. Aratoff looked at it intently … it was Clara! And this time she was gazing straight at him, she moved toward him…. On her head was a wreath of red roses…. It kept undulating, rising….

Before him stood his aunt in her nightcap, with a broad red ribbon, and in a white wrapper.

“Platosha!” he enunciated with difficulty.–“Is it you?”

“It is I,” replied Platonida Ivanovna…. “It is I, Yashyonotchek, it is I.”

“Why have you come?”

“Why, thou didst wake me. At first thou seemedst to be moaning all the while … and then suddenly thou didst begin to shout: ‘Save me! Help me!'”

“I shouted?”

“Yes, thou didst shout, and so hoarsely: ‘Save me!’–I thought: ‘O Lord! Can he be ill?’ So I entered. Art thou well?”

“Perfectly well.”

“Come, that means that thou hast had a bad dream. I will fumigate with incense if thou wishest–shall I?”

Again Aratoff gazed intently at his aunt, and burst into a loud laugh…. The figure of the kind old woman in nightcap and wrapper, with her frightened, long-drawn face, really was extremely comical. All that mysterious something which had surrounded him, had stifled him, all those delusions dispersed on the instant.

“No, Platosha, my dear, it is not necessary,” he said.–“Forgive me for having involuntarily alarmed you. May your rest be tranquil–and I will go to sleep also.”

Platonida Ivanovna stood a little while longer on the spot where she was, pointed at the candle, grumbled: “Why dost thou not extinguish it? … there will be a catastrophe before long!”–and as she retired, could not refrain from making the sign of the cross over him from afar.