She knew quite well that to go to him now would mean
complete surrender. She had no illusions about that. The whole of her
body was quivering with desire for his embrace, for the warm strength of
his body, for the kindness in his eyes, and the compelling mastery of
his hands.
She had never loved a man before; but it seemed to her now that she had
known all these sensations always, and that she was now, at last, her
real self, and that the earlier Vera had been a ghost. And what ghosts
were Nina and Markovitch!
She told me afterwards that, on looking back, this seemed to her the
most horrible part of the horrible afternoon. These two, who had been
for so many years the very centre of her life, whom she had forced to
hold up, as it were, the whole foundation of her existence, now simply
were not real at all. She might call to them, and their voices were like
far echoes or the wind. She gazed at them, and the colours of the room
and the street seemed to shine through them.... She fought for their
reality. She forced herself to recall all the many things that they had
done together, Nina's little ways, the quarrels with Nicholas, the
reconciliations, the times when he had been ill, the times when they had
gone to the country, to the theatre.
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