The Russian, I believe, lives in a world of
loneliness peopled only by ideas. His impulses towards self-confession,
towards brotherhood, towards vice, towards cynicism, towards his belief
in God and his scorn of Him, come out of this world; and beyond it he
sees his fellow-men as trees walking, and the Mountain of God as a
distant peak, placed there only to emphasise his irony.
I had wanted to be friends with Nina and Vera--I had even longed for
it--and now at the crisis when I must rise and act they were so far away
from me that I could only see them, like coloured ghosts, vanishing into
mist.
I would go at once and see Vera and there do what I could. Lawrence must
return to England--then all would be well. Markovitch must be
persuaded.... Nina must be told.... I slept and tumbled into a
nightmare of a pursuit, down endless streets, of flying figures.
Next day I went to Vera. I found her, to my joy, alone. I realised at
once that our talk would be difficult. She was grave and severe, sitting
back in her chair, her head up, not looking at me at all, but beyond
through the window to the tops of the trees feathery with snow against
the sky of egg-shell blue.
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