Then they were killed
and I _had_ to go on alone.... And after that, when I married Nicholas,
it was I again who decided everything. And my mistakes taught me
nothing. I didn't want them to teach me."
She spoke that last word fiercely, and through the note that came into
her voice I saw suddenly the potentialities that were in her, the other
creature that she might be if she were ever awakened.
She talked then for a long time. She didn't move at all; her head rested
on her hand and her eyes watched me. As I listened I thought of my other
friend Marie, who now was dead, and how restless she was when she spoke,
moving about the room, stopping to demand my approval, protesting
against my criticism, laughing, crying out.... Vera was so still, so
wise, too, in comparison with Marie, braver too--and yet the same heart,
the same charity, the same nobility.
But she was my friend, and Marie I had loved.... The difference in that!
And how much easier now to help than it had been then, simply because
one's own soul _was_ one's own and one stood by oneself!
How happy a thing freedom is--and how lonely!
She told me many things that I need not repeat here, but, as she talked,
I saw how, far more deeply than I had imagined, Nina had been the heart
of the whole of her life.
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