XV
Aratov went to bed early, without feeling specially sleepy, but he hoped to find repose in bed. The strained condition of his nerves brought about an exhaustion far more unbearable than the bodily fatigue of the journey and the railway. However, exhausted as he was, he could not get to sleep. He tried to read ... but the lines danced before his eyes. He put out the candle, and darkness reigned in his room. But still he lay sleepless, with his eyes shut.... And it began to seem to him some one was whispering in his ear.... ‘The beating of the heart, the pulse of the blood,’ he thought.... But the whisper passed into connected speech. Some one was talking in Russian hurriedly, plaintively, and indistinctly. Not one separate word could he catch.... But it was the voice of Clara.
Aratov opened his eyes, raised himself, leaned on his elbow.... The voice grew fainter, but kept up its plaintive, hurried talk, indistinct as before....
It was unmistakably Clara’s voice.
Unseen fingers ran light arpeggios up and down the keys of the piano ... then the voice began again. More prolonged sounds were audible ... as it were moans ... always the same over and over again. Then apart from the rest the words began to stand out ... ‘Roses ... roses ... roses....’
‘Roses,’ repeated Aratov in a whisper. ‘Ah, yes! it’s the roses I saw on that woman’s head in the dream.’... ‘Roses,’ he heard again.
‘Is that you?’ Aratov asked in the same whisper. The voice suddenly ceased.
Aratov waited ... and waited, and dropped his head on the pillow. ‘Hallucinations of hearing,’ he thought. ‘But if ... if she really were here, close at hand?... If I were to see her, should I be frightened? or glad? But what should I be frightened of? or glad of? Why, of this, to be sure; it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal. Though, indeed, even if I did see something, it too might be a hallucination of the sight....’
He lighted the candle, however, and in a rapid glance, not without a certain dread, scanned the whole room ... and saw nothing in it unusual. He got up, went to the stereoscope ... again the same grey doll, with its eyes averted. The feeling of dread gave way to one of annoyance. He was, as it were, cheated in his expectations ... the very expectation indeed struck him as absurd.
‘Well, this is positively idiotic!’ he muttered, as he got back into bed, and blew out the candle. Profound darkness reigned once more.