Aratov did not utter a word, he dropped into a chair, and after a brief pause, asked Kupfer to tell him ... he stammered.
‘What?’ inquired Kupfer.
‘Oh ... everything,’ Aratov answered brokenly, ‘all about her family ... and the rest of it. Everything you know!’
‘Why, does it interest you? By all means!’ And Kupfer, whose face showed no traces of his having been so terribly broken-hearted about Clara, began his story.
From his account Aratov learnt that Clara Militch’s real name was Katerina Milovidov; that her father, now dead, had held the post of drawing-master in a school in Kazan, had painted bad portraits and holy pictures of the regulation type; that he had besides had the character of being a drunkard and a domestic tyrant; that he had left behind him, first a widow, of a shopkeeper’s family, a quite stupid body, a character straight out of an Ostrovsky comedy; and secondly, a daughter much older than Clara and not like her—a very clever girl, and enthusiastic, only sickly, a remarkable girl—and very advanced in her ideas, my dear boy! That they were living, the widow and daughter, fairly comfortably, in a decent little house, obtained by the sale of the bad portraits and holy pictures; that Clara ... or Katia, if you like, from her childhood up impressed every one with her talent, but was of an insubordinate, capricious temper, and used to be for ever quarrelling with her father; that having an inborn passion for the theatre, at sixteen she had run away from her parent’s house with an actress ...’
‘With an actor?’ put in Aratov.
‘No, not with an actor, with an actress, to whom she became attached.... It’s true this actress had a protector, a wealthy gentleman, no longer young, who did not marry her simply because he happened to be married—and indeed I fancy the actress was a married woman.’ Furthermore Kupfer informed Aratov that Clara had even before her coming to Moscow acted and sung in provincial theatres, that, having lost her friend the actress—the gentleman, too, it seemed, had died, or else he had made it up with his wife—Kupfer could not quite remember this—she had made the acquaintance of the princess, ‘that heart of gold, whom you, my dear Yakov Andreitch,’ the speaker added with feeling, ‘were incapable of appreciating properly’; that at last Clara had been offered an engagement in Kazan, and that she had accepted it, though before then she used to declare that she would never leave Moscow! But then how the people of Kazan liked her—it was really astonishing! Whatever the performance was, nothing but nosegays and presents! nosegays and presents! A wholesale miller, the greatest swell in the province, had even presented her with a gold inkstand! Kupfer related all this with great animation, without giving expression, however, to any special sentimentality, and interspersing his narrative with the questions, ‘What is it to you?’ and ‘Why do you ask?’ when Aratov, who listened to him with devouring attention, kept asking for more and more details. All was told at last, and Kupfer was silent, rewarding himself for his exertions with a cigar.
‘And why did she take poison?’ asked Aratov. ‘In the paper it was stated....’
Kupfer waved his hand. ‘Well ... that I can’t say ... I don’t know. But the paper tells a lie. Clara’s conduct was exemplary ... no love affairs of any kind.... And indeed how should there be with her pride! She was proud—as Satan himself—and unapproachable! A headstrong creature! Hard as rock! You’ll hardly believe it—though I knew her so well—I never saw a tear in her eyes!’
‘But I have,’ Aratov thought to himself.