Until the arrival of Marie
Ivanovna there was no answer to these questions--after that the answer
was obvious enough. Again, one could not hate a man of his sterling
independence of character. We were, all of us I think, emotionalists, of
one kind or another, and went up and down in our feelings, alliances,
severances, trusts and distrusts, as a thermometer goes up and down. We
were good enough people in our way, but we were most certainly not "a
strong lot." Even Nikitin, the best of the rest of us, was a dreamy
idealist, far enough from life as it was and quite unprepared to come
down from his dreams and see things as they were.
But Semyonov never relaxed for an instant from his position. He asked
no man's help nor advice, minded no man's scorn, sought no man's love.
During my experience of him I saw him moved only once by an
overmastering emotion, and that was, of course, his love for Marie
Ivanovna. That, I believe, _did_ master him, but deep down, deep down,
he kept his rebellions, his anxieties, his surmises; only as the
light of a burning house is seen by men, pale and faint upon the sky
many miles from the conflagration, did we catch signs of his trouble.
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