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“I am forgiven!”–cried Aratoff.–“Thou hast conquered…. So take me! For I am thine, and thou art mine!”

He darted toward her, he tried to kiss those smiling, those triumphant lips,–and he did kiss them, he felt their burning touch, he felt even the moist chill of her teeth, and a rapturous cry rang through the half-dark room.

Platonida Ivanovna ran in and found him in a swoon. He was on his knees; his head was lying on the arm-chair; his arms, outstretched before him, hung powerless; his pale face breathed forth the intoxication of boundless happiness.

Platonida Ivanovna threw herself beside him, embraced him, stammered: “Yasha! Yashenka! Yashenyonotchek!!”[67] tried to lift him up with her bony arms … he did not stir. Then Platonida Ivanovna set to screaming in an unrecognisable voice. The maid-servant ran in. Together they managed somehow to lift him up, seated him in a chair, and began to dash water on him–and water in which a holy image had been washed at that….

FOOTNOTE:
[67] Diminutives of Yakoff, implying great affection.
–TRANSLATOR.

He came to himself; but merely smiled in reply to his aunt’s queries, and with such a blissful aspect that she became more perturbed than ever, and kept crossing first him and then herself…. At last Aratoff pushed away her hand, and still with the same beatific expression on his countenance, he said:–

“What is the matter with you, Platosha?”

“What ails thee, Yashenka?”

“Me?–I am happy … happy, Platosha … that is what ails me. But now I want to go to bed and sleep.”

He tried to rise, but felt such a weakness in his legs and in all his body that he was not in a condition to undress and get into bed himself without the aid of his aunt and of the maid-servant. But he fell asleep very quickly, preserving on his face that same blissfully-rapturous expression. Only his face was extremely pale.

XVIII

When Platonida Ivanovna entered his room on the following morning he was in the same condition … but his weakness had not passed off, and he even preferred to remain in bed. Platonida Ivanovna did not like the pallor of his face in particular.

“What does it mean, O Lord!” she thought. “There isn’t a drop of blood in his face, he refuses his beef-tea; he lies there and laughs, and keeps asserting that he is quite well!”

He refused breakfast also.–“Why dost thou do that, Yasha?” she asked him; “dost thou intend to lie like this all day?”

“And what if I do?” replied Aratoff, affectionately.

This very affection also did not please Platonida Ivanovna. Aratoff wore the aspect of a man who has learned a great secret, which is very agreeable to him, and is jealously clinging to it and reserving it for himself. He was waiting for night, not exactly with impatience but with curiosity.

“What comes next?” he asked himself;–“what will happen?” He had ceased to be surprised, to be perplexed; he cherished no doubt as to his having entered into communication with Clara; that they loved each other … he did not doubt, either. Only … what can come of such a love?–He recalled that kiss … and a wondrous chill coursed swiftly and sweetly through all his limbs.–“Romeo and Juliet did not exchange such a kiss as that!” he thought. “But the next time I shall hold out better…. I shall possess her…. She will come with the garland of tiny roses in her black curls….

“But after that what? For we cannot live together, can we? Consequently I must die in order to be with her? Was not that what she came for,–and is it not in that way she wishes to take me?

“Well, and what of that? If I must die, I must. Death does not terrify me in the least now. For it cannot annihilate me, can it? On the contrary, only thus and there shall I be happy … as I have never been happy in my lifetime, as she has never been in hers…. For we are both unsullied!–Oh, that kiss!”