had had 'anything of the sort' in her mind, his behaviour during their interview must have effectually disillusioned her. . . . 'That was why she laughed so cruelly, too, at parting. Besides, what proof is there that she took poison because of unrequited love? That's only the newspaper correspondents, who ascribe every death of that sort to unrequited love! People of a character like Clara's readily feel life repulsive . . . burdensome. Yes, burdensome. Kupfer was right; she was simply sick of life.
'In spite of her successes, her triumphs?' Aratov mused. He got a positive pleasure from the psychological analysis to which he was devoting himself. Remote till now from all contact with women, he did not even suspect all the significance for himself of this intense realisation of a woman's soul.
'It follows,' he pursued his meditations, 'that art did not satisfy her, did not fill the void in her life. Real artists exist only for art, for the theatre. . . . Everything else is pale beside what they regard as their vocation. . . . She was a dilettante.'
At this point Aratov fell to pondering again. 'No, the word dilettante did not accord with that face, the expression of that face, those eyes. . . .'
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