And yet I cannot leave him,
because I am soft, soft without bones, like my country, Ivan
Andreievitch.... My lover is strong. Nothing can change his will. He
will go, will leave me, until he knows that I am free. Then he will
never leave me again.
"Perhaps I will get tired of his strength one day--it may be--just as
now I am tired of Nicholas's weakness. Everything has its end.
"But no! he has humour, and he sees life as it is. I shall be able
always to tell him the truth. With Nicholas it is always lies...."
She suddenly sprang up and stood before me.
"Now, do you think me noble?" she cried.
"Yes," I answered.
"Ah! you are incorrigible! You have drunk Dostoieffsky until you can see
nothing but God and the moujik! But I am alive, Ivan Andreievitch, not a
heroine in a book! Alive, alive, alive! Not one of your Lisas or Annas
or Natashas. I'm alive enough to shoot Uncle Alexei and poison
Nicholas--but I'm soft too, soft so that I cannot bear to see a rabbit
killed... and yet I love Sherry so that I am blind for him and deaf for
him and dead for him--when he is not there. My love--the only one of my
life--the first and the last--"
She flung out her arms:
"Life! Now! Before it is too late! I want it, I want him, I want
happiness!"
She stood thus for a moment, staring out to the sea.
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