unsuccessful though it was the means of support of himself and his family. Her mother Clara loved, . . . but in a careless way, as though she were her nurse; her sister she adored, though she fought with her and had even bitten her. . . . It is true she fell on her knees afterwards and kissed the place she had bitten. She was all fire, all passion, and all contradiction; revengeful and kind; magnanimous and vindictive ; she believed in fate — and did not believe in God (these words Anna whispered with horror); she loved everything beautiful, but never troubled herself about her own looks, and dressed anyhow; she could not bear to have young men courting her, and yet in books she only read the pages which treated of love; she did not care to be liked, did not like caresses, but never forgot a caress, just as she never forgot a slight; she was afraid of death and killed herself! She used to say sometimes, 'Such a one as I want I shall never meet . . . and no other will I have!' 'Well, but if you meet him?' Anna would ask. 'If I meet him . . . I will capture him.' 'And if he won't let himself be captured?' 'Well, then . . . I will make an end of myself. It will prove I am no good.' Clara's father — he used sometimes when drunk to ask his wife, ' Who got you your blackbrowed she-devil there? NotI!' — Clara's
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