Her
Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she
had grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerous
to women, who loved and feared and hated him. Vera said that he had
great power over them and made them miserable, and that he was,
therefore, a bad, wicked man. But this only served to make him, in
Nina's eyes, the more a romantic figure.
However, he had never treated her in the least seriously, had tossed her
in the air spiritually just as he had done physically when she was a
baby, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema,
laughed at her, and, she felt, deeply despised her. Then came the war
and he had gone to the Front, and she had almost forgotten him. Then
came the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who had
been killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable and a changed man.
Was it wonderful that on his return to Petrograd she should feel again
that old Byronic (every Russian is still brought up on Byron) romance?
She did not like him, but--well--Vera was a staid old-fashioned
thing.... Perhaps they all misjudged him; perhaps he really needed
comfort and consolation.
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