Arátoff was acquainted with this poem also…. And now these words kept incessantly recurring to his memory…. "Unhappy Clara! foolish Clara!…" (That was why he had been so surprised when Kupfer mentioned Clara Mílitch to him.) Even Platósha noticed, not precisely a change in Yákoff's frame of mind—as a matter of fact, no change had taken place—but something wrong about his looks, in his remarks. She cautiously interrogated him about the literary morning at which he had been present;—she whispered, sighed, scrutinised him from in front, scrutinised him from the side, from behind—and suddenly, slapping her hands on her thighs, she exclaimed:
"Well, Yáshal—I see what the trouble is!"
"What dost thou mean?" queried Arátoff in his turn.
"Thou hast certainly met at that morning some one of those tail-draggers" (that was what Platonída Ivánovna called all ladies who wore fashionable gowns)…. "She has a comely face—and she puts on airs like this,—and twists her face like this" (Platósha depicted all this in her face), "and she makes her eyes go round like this…." (she mimicked this also, describing huge circles in the air with her forefinger)…. "And it made an impression on thee, because thou art not used to it…. But that does not signify anything, Yásha … it does not signify anything! Drink a cup of herb-tea when thou goest to bed, and that will be the end of it!… Lord, help!"
Platósha ceased speaking and took herself off…. She probably had never made such a long and animated speech before since she was born … but Arátoff thought:
"I do believe my aunt is right…. It is all because I am not used to such things…." (He really had attracted the attention of the female sex to himself for the first time … at any rate, he had never noticed it before.) "I must not indulge myself."
So he set to work at his books, and drank some linden-flower tea when he went to bed, and even slept well all that night, and had no dreams. On the following morning he busied himself with his photography, as though nothing had happened….
But toward evening his spiritual serenity was again disturbed.
VI
To wit: a messenger brought him a note, written in a large, irregular feminine hand, which ran as follows: