able than the bodily fatigue of the journey and the railway. However, exhausted as he was, he could not get to sleep. He tried to read . . . but the lines danced before his eyes. He put out the candle, and darkness reigned in his room. But still he lay sleepless, with his eyes shut. . . . And it began to seem to him some one was whispering in his ear. . . . 'The beating of the heart, the pulse of the blood,' he thought. . . . But the whisper passed into connected speech. Some one was talking in Russian hurriedly, plaintively, and indistinctly. Not one separate word could he catch. . . . But it was the voice of Clara.
Aratov opened his eyes, raised himself, leaned on his elbow. . . . The voice grew fainter, but kept up its plaintive, hurried talk, indistinct as before. . . .
It was unmistakably Clara's voice.
Unseen fingers ran light arpeggios up and down the keys of the piano . . . then the voice began again. More prolonged sounds were audible . . . as it were moans . . . always the same over and over again. Then apart from the rest the words began to stand out . . . 'Roses . . . roses . . . roses. . . .'
'Roses,' repeated Aratov in a whisper. 'Ah, yes! it 's the roses I saw on that woman's head in the dream.' ... 'Roses,' he heard again.
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