She had seemed to have no share
in this,--and then suddenly the figure of Boris showed me that one's
private life is always with one, that it is a secret city in which one
must always live, and whose gates one will never pass through, whatever
may be going on in the world outside. But Grogoff! What a change! You
know, I had always patronised him, Ivan Andreievitch. It had seemed to
me that he was only a boy with a boy's crude ideas. You know his fresh
face with the way that he used to push back his hair from his forehead,
and shout his ideas. He never considered any one's feelings. He was a
complete egoist, and a man, it seemed to me, of no importance. But now!
He stood on a bench and had around him a large crowd of soldiers. He was
shouting in just his old way that he used in the English Prospect, but
he seemed to have grown in the meantime, into a man. He did not seem
afraid any more. I saw that he had power over the men to whom he was
speaking.... I couldn't hear what he said, but through the dust and heat
he seemed to grow and grow until it was only him whom I saw there.
"'He will carry off Nina' was my next thought--ludicrous there at such a
time, in such a crowd, but it is exactly like that that life shifts and
shifts until it has formed a pattern.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353