‘I have been in Kazan, yes; the princess and I accompanied her there. She came out on the stage there, and had a great success. But I didn’t stay up to the time of the catastrophe ... I was in Yaroslav at the time.’ ‘In Yaroslav?’ ‘Yes--I escorted the princess there.... She is living now at Yaroslav.’ ‘But you have trustworthy information?’ ‘Trustworthy ... I have it at first-hand!--I made the acquaintance of her family in Kazan. But, my dear boy ... this news seems to be upsetting you? Why, I recollect you didn’t care for Clara at one time? You were wrong, though! She was a marvellous girl--only what a temper! I was terribly broken-hearted about her!’ Aratov did not utter a word, he dropped into a chair, and after a brief pause, asked Kupfer to tell him ... he stammered. ‘What?’ inquired Kupfer. ‘Oh ... everything,’ Aratov answered brokenly, ‘all about her family ... and the rest of it. Everything you know!’ ‘Why, does it interest you? By all means!’ And Kupfer, whose face showed no traces of his having been so terribly broken-hearted about Clara, began his story. From his account Aratov learnt that Clara Militch’s real name was Katerina Milovidov; that her father, now dead, had held the post of drawing-master in a school in Kazan, had painted bad portraits and holy pictures of the regulation type; that he had besides had the character of being a drunkard and a domestic tyrant; that he had left behind him, first a widow, of a shopkeeper’s family, a quite stupid body, a character straight out of an Ostrovsky comedy; and secondly, a daughter much older than Clara and not like her--a very clever girl, and enthusiastic, only sickly, a remarkable girl--and very advanced in her ideas, my dear boy! That they were living, the widow and daughter, fairly comfortably, in a decent little house, obtained by the sale of the bad portraits and holy pictures; that Clara ... or Katia, if you like, from her childhood up impressed every one with her talent, but was of an insubordinate, capricious temper, and used to be for ever quarrelling with her father; that having an inborn passion for the theatre, at sixteen she had run away from her parent’s house with an actress ...’ ‘With an actor?’ put in Aratov.