io had vanished
for them as though he had never existed. And both Fabio and Valeria
seemed to have entered into a compact not to recall him by a single
sound, not to inquire about his further fate; and it remained a mystery
for all others as well. Muzio really did vanish, as though he had sunk
through the earth. One day Fabio thought himself bound to relate to
Valeria precisely what had occurred on that fateful night ... but she,
probably divining his intention, held her breath, and her eyes narrowed
as though she were anticipating a blow.... And Fabio understood her: he
did not deal her that blow.

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 MILITCH

A TALE

(1882)

I

In the spring of 1878 there lived in Moscow, in a small wooden house on
Shabolovka Street, a young man five-and-twenty years of age, Yakoff
Aratoff by name. With him lived his aunt, an old maid, over fifty years
of age, his father's sister, Platonida Ivanovna. She managed his
housekeeping and took charge of his expenditures, of which Aratoff 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 Platonida Ivanovna who, by the
way, was always called Platosha; and her nephew called her so too. When
he quitted the country where all of them had constantly dwelt hitherto,
old Aratoff 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 nic