... worst of all, so artificial ... just as
though he did not believe in what he was writing, or in his own feelings
... and Clara herself seemed to him unrecognisable, incomprehensible!
She would not yield herself to him.

"No," he thought, throwing aside his pen, "either I have no talent for
writing in general, or I must wait a while yet!"

He began to call to mind his visit to the Milovidoffs, and all the
narration of Anna, of that kind, splendid Anna.... The word she had
uttered: "unsullied!" suddenly struck him. It was exactly as though
something had scorched and illuminated him.

"Yes," he said aloud, "she was unsullied and I am unsullied.... That is
what has given her this power!"

Thoughts concerning the immortality of the soul, the life beyond the
grave, again visited him. "Is it not said in the Bible: 'O death, where
is thy sting?' And in Schiller: 'And the dead also shall live!' (_Auch
die Todten sollen leben!_)--Or here again, in Mickiewicz, 'I shall love
until life ends ... and after life ends!'--While one English writer has
said: 'Love is stronger than death!'"--The biblical sentence acted with
peculiar force on Aratoff. He wanted to look up the place where those
words were to be found.... He had no Bible; he went to borrow one from
Platosha. She was astonished; but she got out an old, old book in a
warped leather binding with brass clasps, all spotted with wax, and
handed it to Aratoff. He carried it off to his own room, but for a long
time could not find that verse ... but on the other hand, he hit upon
another:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends".... (the Gospel of John, Chap. XV, verse 13).

He thought: "That is not properly expressed.--It should read: 'Greater
_power_ hath no man!'"....

"But what if she did not set her soul on me at all? What if she killed
herself merely because life had become a burden to her?--What if she, in
conclusion, did not come to that tryst with the object of obtaining
declarations of love at all?"

But at that moment Clara before her parting on the boulevard rose up
before him.... He recalled that sorrowful expression on her face, and
those tears, and those words:--"Akh, you have understood nothing!"

No! He could not doubt for what object and for what person she had laid
down her life....

Thus passed that day until nightfall.

XV

Aratoff went early to bed, without feeling particularly sleep