and kissed the place she had bitten. She was all fire, all passion, and
all contradiction; revengeful and kind; magnanimous and vindictive; she
believed in fate--and did not believe in God (these words Anna whispered
with horror); she loved everything beautiful, but never troubled herself
about her own looks, and dressed anyhow; she could not bear to have young
men courting her, and yet in books she only read the pages which treated of
love; she did not care to be liked, did not like caresses, but never forgot
a caress, just as she never forgot a slight; she was afraid of death and
killed herself! She used to say sometimes, 'Such a one as I want I shall
never meet ... and no other will I have!' 'Well, but if you meet him?' Anna
would ask. 'If I meet him ... I will capture him.' 'And if he won't let
himself be captured?' 'Well, then ... I will make an end of myself. It will
prove I am no good.' Clara's father--he used sometimes when drunk to ask
his wife, 'Who got you your blackbrowed she-devil there? Not I!'--Clara's
father, anxious to get her off his hands as soon as possible, betrothed
her to a rich young shopkeeper, a great blockhead, one of the so-called
'refined' sort. A fortnight before the wedding-day--she was only sixteen
at the time--she went up to her betrothed, her arms folded and her fingers
drumming on her elbows--her favourite position--and suddenly gave him a
slap on his rosy cheek with her large powerful hand! He jumped and merely
gaped; it must be said he was head over ears in love with her.... He asked:
'What's that for?' She laughed scornfully and walked off. 'I was there in
the room,' Anna related, 'I saw it all, I ran after her and said to her,
"Katia, why did you do that, really?" And she answered me: "If he'd been a
real man he would have punished me, but he's no more pluck than a drowned
hen! And then he asks, 'What's that for?' If he loves me, and doesn't bear
malice, he had better put up with it and not ask, 'What's that for?' I will
never be anything to him--never, never!" And indeed she did not marry him.
It was soon after that she made the acquaintance of that actress, and left
her home. Mother cried, but father only said, "A stubborn beast is best