XVIII
When Platonída Ivánovna 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. Platonída Ivánovna 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, Yásha?" she asked him; "dost thou intend to lie like this all day?"
"And what if I do?" replied Arátoff, affectionately.
This very affection also did not please Platonída Ivánovna. Arátoff 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!"
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