... Nothing wonderful, but so many loved her! There was
never, I think, a woman so greatly beloved. And you may judge by me. I
had led a life in which after my work women had always played the
chief part, and as the months passed and I had grown proud I had vowed
that women must be exceptional to please me. I had felt the eye of the
world upon me. 'You'll see no ordinary women in Victor Leontievitch's
company' I heard them say, and I was proud that they should say it.
From the first instant of seeing Alexandra Pavlovna I loved her and I
loved her in a new, an utterly new way. For the first time in my life
I did not think of myself as a traveller who, passing for many years
through countries that did not greatly interest him, feels his aches
and pains, his money troubles, his discomforts and little personal
irritations. Then suddenly he crosses the border and the new land so
possesses him that he is only a vessel for its beauty, to absorb it,
to hold it, to carry the burden of it in safety.
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