“A bad effect?” I repeated.
“Yes. He irritates him. He laughs at his inventions, you know.”
I nodded my head. Yes, with my earlier experience of him I could understand that he would do that.
“He’s a cynical, embittered man,” I said. “He believes in nothing and in nobody. And yet he has his fine side—”
“No, he has no fine side,” she interrupted me fiercely. “None. He is a bad man. I’ve known him all my life, and I’m not to be deceived.”
Then in a softer, quieter tone she continued:
“But tell me, Ivan Andreievitch. I’ve wanted before to ask you. You were with him on the Front last year. We have heard that he had a great love affair there, and that the Sister whom he loved was killed. Is that true?”
“Yes,” I said, “that is true.”
“Was he very much in love with her?”
“I believe terribly.”