One fine autumnal day Fabio was putting the finishing touches to the picture of his Cecilia; Valeria was sitting at the organ, and her fingers were wandering over the keys…. Suddenly, contrary to her own volition, from beneath her fingers rang out that Song of Love Triumphant which Muzio had once played,—and at that same instant, for the first time since her marriage, she felt within her the palpitation of a new, germinating life…. Valeria started and stopped short….
What was the meaning of this? Could it be….
With this word the manuscript came to an end.
CLARA MÍLITCH
A TALE
(1882)
I
In the spring of 1878 there lived in Moscow, in a small wooden house on Shabólovka Street, a young man five-and-twenty years of age, Yákoff Arátoff by name. With him lived his aunt, an old maid, over fifty years of age, his father's sister, Platonída Ivánovna. She managed his housekeeping and took charge of his expenditures, of which Arátoff was utterly incapable. He had no other relations. Several years before, his father, a petty and not wealthy noble of the T—— government, had removed to Moscow, together with him and Platonída Ivánovna who, by the way, was always called Platósha; and her nephew called her so too. When he quitted the country where all of them had constantly dwelt hitherto, old Arátoff had settled in the capital with the object of placing his son in the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he purchased for a trifling sum a small house on one of the remote streets, and installed himself therein with all his books and "preparations." And of books and preparations he had many, for he was a man not devoid of learning … "a supernatural eccentric," according to the words of his neighbours. He even bore among them the reputation of a magician: he had even received the nickname of "the insect-observer." He busied himself with chemistry, mineralogy, entomology, botany, and medicine; he treated voluntary patients with herbs and metallic powders of his own concoction, after the method of Paracelsus. With those same powders he had sent into the grave his young, pretty, but already too delicate wife, whom he had passionately loved, and by whom he had had an only son. With those same metallic powders he had wrought considerable havoc with the health of his son also, which, on the contrary, he had wished to reinforce, as he detected in his organisation anæmia and a tendency to consumption inherited from his mother. The title of "magician" he had acquired, among other things, from the fact that he considered himself a great-grandson—not in the direct line, of course—of the famous Bruce, in whose honour he had named his son Yákoff.[51] He was the sort of man who is called "very good-natured," but of a melancholy temperament, fussy, and timid, with a predilection for everything that was mysterious or mystical…. "Ah!" uttered in a half-whisper was his customary exclamation; and he died with that exclamation on his lips, two years after his removal to Moscow.
His son Yákoff did not, in outward appearance, resemble his father, who had been homely in person, clumsy and awkward; he reminded one rather of his mother. There were the same delicate, pretty features, the same soft hair of ashblonde hue, the same plump, childish lips, and large, languishing, greenish-grey eyes, and feathery eyelashes. On the other hand in disposition he resembled his father; and his face, which did not resemble his father's, bore the stamp of his father's expression; and he had angular arms, and a sunken chest, like old Arátoff, who, by the way, should hardly be called an old man, since he did not last to the age of fifty. During the latter's lifetime Yákoff had already entered the university, in the physico-mathematical faculty; but he did not finish his course,—not out of idleness, but because, according to his ideas, a person can learn no more in the university than he can teach himself at home; and he did not aspire to a diploma, as he was not intending to enter the government service. He avoided his comrades, made acquaintance with hardly any one, was especially shy of women, and lived a very isolated life, immersed in his books. He was shy of women, although he had a very tender heart, and was captivated by beauty…. He even acquired the luxury of an English keepsake, and (Oh, for shame!) admired the portraits of divers, bewitching Gulnares and Medoras which "adorned" it…. But his inborn modesty constantly restrained him. At home he occupied his late father's study, which had also been his bedroom; and his bed was the same on which his father had died.
The great support of his whole existence, his unfailing comrade and friend, was his aunt, that Platósha, with whom he exchanged barely ten words a day, but without whom he could not take a step. She was a long-visaged, long-toothed being, with pale eyes in a pale face, and an unvarying expression partly of sadness, partly of anxious alarm. Eternally attired in a grey gown, and a grey shawl which was redolent of camphor, she wandered about the house like a shadow, with noiseless footsteps; she sighed, whispered prayers—especially one, her favourite, which consisted of two words: "Lord, help!"—and managed the housekeeping very vigorously, hoarding every kopék and buying everything herself. She worshipped her nephew; she was constantly fretting about his health, was constantly in a state of alarm, not about herself but about him, and as soon as she thought there was anything the matter with him, she would quietly approach and place on his writing-table a cup of herb-tea, or stroke his back with her hands, which were as soft as wadding.