“She thought me rather ridiculous, I fancy, but she felt motherly to me, and that’s what most Russian women feel to most men. I was just beginning to love Russia then. I was beginning to dream of its wonderful secrets, secrets that no one ever discovers, secrets the pursuit of which make life one long, restless search. Anna fascinated me—she let me do always as I pleased. She seemed to me freedom itself: I fell madly in love with her.”
Katherine’s hand gave then a sudden leap in his; he felt the ends of her fingers pressing against his palm. Some of his confidence had left him: some of his confidence not only in himself but in his assurance of the remoteness of his story and the actors in it. He felt as though some hand were dragging him back into scenes that he had abandoned, situations that had been dead. The fire and the sea were veiled, and his eyes, against their will, were fastened upon other visions.
“That year was a very wonderful one for me. We took a flat together, and life seemed to be realised quite completely for me. This, I thought, was what I had always desired ... and I grew slack and fat and lazy—outside my business—I always worked at that decently. Early in the next year we had a boy. Anna took him with the same happy indifference that she had taken me: she loved him, I know, but she was outside us all, speculating about impossibilities, then suddenly coming to earth and startling one with her reality. I loved her and I loved Moscow—although sometimes too I hated it—but we used also to have the most awful quarrels; I was angry with her, I remember, because I thought that she would never take me seriously, and she would laugh at me for wanting her to. I felt that Russia was doing me no good. Our boy died, quite suddenly, of pneumonia, and then I begged her to marry me and come and live in England. How she laughed at the idea! She didn’t want to be married to anyone. But she thought that perhaps England would be better for me. She did not seem to mind at all if I went. That piqued me, and I stayed on, trying to make myself essential to her. I did not care for her then so much as for my idea of myself, that she would break her heart if I went. But she knew that—how she would laugh as she looked at me.... She refused to take me seriously. Russia was doing me harm—I got slack, sleepy, indifferent. I longed for England. The chance came. Anna said that she was glad for me to go, and laughed as she said it. I took my chance.... I’ve told you everything,” he suddenly ended.
He waited. The tune across the water went: ‘La-la-la, la, la-la-la-la, la, la.’ Many, many little black figures were turning on the fish-market. The blaze of the bonfire was low and its reflection in the sea smoking red.
When he had finished Katherine had very gently drawn her hand away from his, then suddenly, with a little fierce gesture, pushed it back again.
“What was your boy’s name?” she asked, very quietly.
“Paul.”
“Poor little boy. Did you care for him very much?”
“Yes, terribly.”
“It must have been dreadful his dying.”