'Ah!'

Clara gazed fixedly at him ... but her eyes, her features, retained their
former mournfully stern, almost displeased expression. With just that
expression on her face she had come on to the platform on the day of the
literary matinee, before she caught sight of Aratov. And, just as then,
she suddenly flushed, her face brightened, her eyes kindled, and a joyful,
triumphant smile parted her lips....

'I have come!' cried Aratov. 'You have conquered.... Take me! I am yours,
and you are mine!'

He flew to her; he tried to kiss those smiling, triumphant lips, and he
kissed them. He felt their burning touch: he even felt the moist chill of
her teeth: and a cry of triumph rang through the half-dark room.

Platonida Ivanovna, running in, found him in a swoon. He was on his knees;
his head was lying on the arm-chair; his outstretched arms hung powerless;
his pale face was radiant with the intoxication of boundless bliss.

Platonida Ivanovna fairly dropped to the ground beside him; she put her
arms round him, faltered, 'Yasha! Yasha, darling! Yasha, dearest!' tried to
lift him in her bony arms ... he did not stir. Then Platonida Ivanovna fell
to screaming in a voice unlike her own. The servant ran in. Together they
somehow roused him, began throwing water over him--even took it from the
holy lamp before the holy picture....

He came to himself. But in response to his aunt's questions he only smiled,
and with such an ecstatic face that she was more alarmed than ever, and
kept crossing first herself and then him.... Aratov, at last, put aside her