She held a volume of Pushkin in her hand; she did not, however, glance at it once during her recitation.... She was obviously nervous, the little book shook slightly in her fingers. Aratov observed also the expression of weariness which now overspread all her stern features. The first line, ‘I write to you ... what more?’ she uttered exceedingly simply, almost naïvely, and with a naïve, genuine, helpless gesture held both hands out before her. Then she began to hurry a little; but from the beginning of the lines: ‘Another! no! To no one in the whole world I have given my heart!’ she mastered her powers, gained fire; and when she came to the words, ‘My whole life has but been a pledge of a meeting true with thee,’ her hitherto thick voice rang out boldly and enthusiastically, while her eyes just as boldly and directly fastened upon Aratov. She went on with the same fervour, and only towards the end her voice dropped again; and in it, and in her face, the same weariness was reflected again. The last four lines she completely ‘murdered,’ as it is called; the volume of Pushkin suddenly slid out of her hand, and she hastily withdrew. The audience fell to applauding desperately, encoring.... One Little-Russian divinity student bellowed in so deep a bass, ‘Mill-itch! Mill-itch!’ that his neighbour civilly and sympathetically advised him, ‘to take care of his voice, it would be the making of a protodeacon.’ But Aratov at once rose and made for the door. Kupfer overtook him.... ‘I say, where are you off to?’ he called; ‘would you like me to present you to Clara?’ ‘No, thanks,’ Aratov returned hurriedly, and he went homewards almost at a run. V He was agitated by strange sensations, incomprehensible to himself. In reality, Clara’s recitation, too, had not been quite to his taste ... though he could not quite tell why. It disturbed him, this recitation; it struck him as crude and inharmonious.... It was as though it broke something within him, forced itself with a certain violence upon him. And those fixed, insistent, almost importunate looks--what were they for? what did they mean?