But as soon as Aratov found himself alone in his own room, he quickly felt
as though something were enfolding him about, as though he were once more
_in the power_, yes, in the power of another life, another being. Though he
had indeed said to Anna in that sudden delirious outburst that he was in
love with Clara, that saying struck even him now as senseless and frantic.
No, he was not in love; and how could he be in love with a dead woman, whom
he had not even liked in her lifetime, whom he had almost forgotten? No,
but he was in _her_ power ... he no longer belonged to himself. He was
_captured_. So completely captured, that he did not even attempt to free
himself by laughing at his own absurdity, nor by trying to arouse if not
a conviction, at least a hope in himself that it would all pass, that it
was nothing but nerves, nor by seeking for proofs, nor by anything! 'If
I meet him, I will capture him,' he recalled those words of Clara's Anna
had repeated to him. Well, he was captured. But was not she dead? Yes,
her body was dead ... but her soul?... is not that immortal?... does it
need corporeal organs to show its power? Magnetism has proved to us the
influence of one living human soul over another living human soul.... Why
should not this influence last after death, if the soul remains living? But
to what end? What can come of it? But can we, as a rule, apprehend what is
the object of all that takes place about us? These ideas so absorbed Aratov
that he suddenly asked Platosha at tea-time whether she believed in the
immortality of the soul. She did not for the first minute understand what
his question was, then she crossed herself and answered. 'She should think
so indeed! The soul not immortal!' 'And, if so, can it have any influence
after death?' Aratov asked again. The old lady replied that it could ...
pray for us, that is to say; at least, when it had passed through all its
ordeals, awaiting the last dread judgment. But for the first forty days the
soul simply hovered about the place where its death had occurred.