"Well--for instance--of course I've told nobody--and you won't tell any
one either--but the other night I found her crying in the flat, sitting
up near the table, sobbing her heart out. She thought every one was
out--I'd been in my room and she hadn't known. But Vera, Durward--Vera
of all people! I didn't let her see me--she doesn't know now that I
heard her. But when you care for any one as I care for Vera, it's awful
to think that she can suffer like that and one can do nothing. Oh,
Durward, I wish to God I wasn't so helpless! You know before I came out
to Russia I felt so old; I thought there was nothing I couldn't do, that
I was good enough for anybody. And now I'm the most awful ass. Fancy,
Durward! Those poems of mine--I thought they were wonderful. I
thought--"
He was interrupted by a sudden sharp crackle like a fire bursting into a
blaze quite close at hand. We both sprang to the windows, threw them
open (they were not sealed, for some unknown reason), and rushed out on
to the balcony. The scene in front of us was just what it had been
before--the bubble clouds were still sailing lazily before the blue, the
skaters were still hovering on the ice, the cart of wood that I had
noticed was vanishing slowly into the distance.
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