About women he knew simply nothing
and Russian women are not the least complicated of their sex. About
Marie Ivanovna he of course knew nothing at all.
His first weeks in our Otriad had been like the painful return to drab
reality after a splendid dream. "After all I am the hopeless creature
I thought I was. What was there, in those days in Petrograd, that
could blind me?" His shyness returned, his awkwardness, his mistakes
in tact and resource were upon him again like a suit of badly made
clothes. He knew this but he believed that it could make no difference
to his lady. So sure was he of himself in regard to her--she might be
transformed into anything hideous or vile and still now he would love
her--that he could not believe that she would change. The love that
had come to them was surely eternal--it must be, it must be, it must
be....
He failed altogether to understand her youth, her inexperience, above
all her coloured romantic fancy. Her romantic fancy had made him in
her eyes for a brief hour something that he was not.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211