Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/69

Rh Ivanovna was so upset that she did not even utter her usual prayer. 'In such a calamity the Lord God Himself cannot aid us!' The same day Aratov set off for Kazan.

XII He had no sooner reached that town and taken a room in a hotel than he rushed off to find out the house of the widow Milovidov. During the whole journey he had been in a sort of benumbed condition, which had not, however, prevented him from taking all the necessary steps, changing at Nizhni-Novgorod from the railway to the steamer, getting his meals at the stations etc., etc. He was convinced as before that there everything would be solved ; and therefore he drove away every sort of memory and reflection, confining himself to one thing, the mental rehearsal of the speech, in which he would lay before the family of Clara Militch the real cause of his visit. And now at last he reached the goal of his efforts, and sent up his name. He was admitted. . . with perplexity and alarm — still he was admitted. The house of the widow Milovidov turned out to be exactly as Kupfer had described it;