‘Read it!’ cried Anna. ‘Why don’t you read it? Read it through from the beginning.... It would take only five minutes to read it all, though the diary extends over two years. In Kazan she used to write down nothing at all....’ Aratov got up slowly from his chair and flung himself on his knees before Anna. She was simply petrified with wonder and dismay. ‘Give me ... give me that diary,’ Aratov began with failing voice, and he stretched out both hands to Anna. ‘Give it me ... and the photograph ... you are sure to have some other one, and the diary I will return.... But I want it, oh, I want it!...’ In his imploring words, in his contorted features there was something so despairing that it looked positively like rage, like agony.... And he was in agony, truly. He could not himself have foreseen that such pain could be felt by him, and in a frenzy he implored forgiveness, deliverance ... ‘Give it me,’ he repeated. ‘But ... you ... you were in love with my sister?’ Anna said at last. Aratov was still on his knees. ‘I only saw her twice ... believe me!... and if I had not been impelled by causes, which I can neither explain nor fully understand myself,... if there had not been some power over me, stronger than myself.... I should not be entreating you ... I should not have come here. I want ... I must ... you yourself said I ought to defend her memory!’ ‘And you were not in love with my sister?’ Anna asked a second time. Aratov did not at once reply, and he turned aside a little, as though in pain. ‘Well, then! I was! I was--I’m in love now,’ he cried in the same tone of despair. Steps were heard in the next room. ‘Get up ... get up ...’ said Anna hurriedly. ‘Mamma is coming.’ Aratov rose. ‘And take the diary and the photograph, in God’s name! Poor, poor Katia!... But you will give me back the diary,’ she added emphatically. ‘And if you write anything, be sure to send it me.... Do you hear?’ The entrance of Madame Milovidov saved Aratov from the necessity of a reply. He had time, however, to murmur, ‘You are an angel! Thanks! I will send anything I write....’ Madame Milovidov, half awake, did not suspect anything. So Aratov left Kazan with the photograph in the breast-pocket of his coat. The diary he gave back to Anna; but, unobserved by her, he cut out the page on which were the words underlined.