‘Is that you?’ Aratov asked in the same whisper. The voice suddenly ceased. Aratov waited ... and waited, and dropped his head on the pillow. ‘Hallucinations of hearing,’ he thought. ‘But if ... if she really were here, close at hand?... If I were to see her, should I be frightened? or glad? But what should I be frightened of? or glad of? Why, of this, to be sure; it would be a proof that there is another world, that the soul is immortal. Though, indeed, even if I did see something, it too might be a hallucination of the sight....’ He lighted the candle, however, and in a rapid glance, not without a certain dread, scanned the whole room ... and saw nothing in it unusual. He got up, went to the stereoscope ... again the same grey doll, with its eyes averted. The feeling of dread gave way to one of annoyance. He was, as it were, cheated in his expectations ... the very expectation indeed struck him as absurd. ‘Well, this is positively idiotic!’ he muttered, as he got back into bed, and blew out the candle. Profound darkness reigned once more. Aratov resolved to go to sleep this time.... But a fresh sensation started up in him. He fancied some one was standing in the middle of the room, not far from him, and scarcely perceptibly breathing. He turned round hastily and opened his eyes.... But what could be seen in impenetrable darkness? He began to feel for a match on his little bedside table ... and suddenly it seemed to him that a sort of soft, noiseless hurricane was passing over the whole room, over him, through him, and the word ‘I!’ sounded distinctly in his ears.... ‘I!... I!’... Some instants passed before he succeeded in getting the candle alight. Again there was no one in the room; and he now heard nothing, except the uneven throbbing of his own heart. He drank a glass of water, and stayed still, his head resting on his hand. He was waiting. He thought: ‘I will wait. Either it’s all nonsense ... or she is here. She is not going to play cat and mouse with me like this!’ He waited, waited long ... so long that the hand on which he was resting his head went numb ... but not one of his previous sensations was repeated. Twice his eyes closed.... He opened them promptly ... at least he believed that he opened them. Gradually they turned towards the door and rested on it. The candle burned dim, and it was once more dark in the room ... but the door made a long streak of white in the half darkness. And now this patch began to move, to grow less, to disappear ... and in its place, in the doorway appeared a woman’s figure. Aratov looked intently at it ... Clara! And this time she was looking straight at him, coming towards him.... On her head was a wreath of red roses.... He was all in agitation, he sat up.... Before him stood his aunt in a nightcap adorned with a broad red ribbon, and in a white dressing-jacket. ‘Platosha!’ he said with an effort. ‘Is that you?’ ‘Yes, it’s I,’ answered Platonida Ivanovna ... ‘I, Yasha darling, yes.’