away from the flock!" And he did not bother about her, or try to find her
out. My father did not understand Katia. On the day before her flight,'
added Anna, 'she almost smothered me in her embraces, and kept repeating:
"I can't, I can't help it!... My heart's torn, but I can't help it! your
cage is too small ... it cramps my wings! And there's no escaping one's
fate...."

'After that,' observed Anna, 'we saw each other very seldom.... When my
father died, she came for a couple of days, would take nothing of her
inheritance, and vanished again. She was unhappy with us ... I could see
that. Afterwards she came to Kazan as an actress.'

Aratov began questioning Anna about the theatre, about the parts in which
Clara had appeared, about her triumphs.... Anna answered in detail, but
with the same mournful, though keen fervour. She even showed Aratov a
photograph, in which Clara had been taken in the costume of one of her
parts. In the photograph she was looking away, as though turning from the
spectators; her thick hair tied with a ribbon fell in a coil on her bare
arm. Aratov looked a long time at the photograph, thought it like, asked
whether Clara had taken part in public recitations, and learnt that she had
not; that she had needed the excitement of the theatre, the scenery ... but
another question was burning on his lips.

'Anna Semyonovna!' he cried at last, not loudly, but with a peculiar force,
'tell me, I implore you, tell me why did she ... what led her to this
fearful step?'...

Anna looked down. 'I don't know,' she said, after a pause of some instants.
'By God, I don't know!' she went on strenuously, supposing from Aratov's
gesture that he did not believe her.... 'since she came back here certainly