‘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 hand, and, still with the same ecstatic expression of face, said: ‘Why, Platosha, what is the matter with you?’ ‘What is the matter with you, Yasha darling?’ ‘With me? I am happy ... happy, Platosha ... that’s what’s the matter with me. And now I want to lie down, to sleep....’ He tried to get up, but felt such a sense of weakness in his legs, and in his whole body, that he could not, without the help of his aunt and the servant, undress and get into bed. But he fell asleep very quickly, still with the same look of blissful triumph on his face. Only his face was very pale. XVIII