Had Nona ever read of a great writer named Tolstoi, who wrote and preached of the real brotherhood of man? He insisted that the words of Christ should be interpreted literally and desired that Russia, and indeed the world, should have no rich and poor, no Czar and slave, but that all men and all women were to be truly equal. Nona’s mother had been a follower of Tolstoi’s principles; therefore, her people had sent her away from her own country because they feared if she continued to live in Russia with these ideas she might be condemned to Siberia. So Anna Orlaff had gladly left her own country, believing that in the United States she would find the spirit of true equality.
Naturally her marriage had been a disappointment. At this point in Sonya Valesky’s letter, Nona Davis began to have a faint appreciation of the situation. She remembered the narrow, conservative life of the old south and that her father had lived largely upon traditions of wealth and family, teaching her little else. What did it matter to him that there were no titles in America, no more slaves to do his bidding, when he continued to believe in the domination of one class over another.
Dimly at first, more vividly afterwards, Nona Davis could see the picture of the young Russian girl, a socialist and dreamer, married into such an environment. How disappointed and unhappy she must have been in the conservative old city of Charleston, South Carolina! No wonder people had never mentioned her name to her daughter, and that her father had been so silent! A Russian socialist was little less than a criminal.
Nona was seated in a hard wooden chair in a small, cell-like room many thousands of miles away from her own old home. Certainly something stronger than her own wish must have drawn her to Russia, for here she must learn to understand the story of her mother’s life and to find her own place in it.
At this point in the narrative Nona let her letter fall idly in her lap. The girl’s hands were clasped tightly together, for now her imagination could tell her more than any words of another’s.
Her father had been devoted to her, but he had not been fair, neither had his friends nor her own. Why had they always led her to believe by their silences that there was something to be ashamed of in her mother’s story? It was odd, of course, to be different from other people, but there was no sin in being a dreamer.
Nona could see the picture of her mother in the white muslin dress and the blue sash there in their old drawing room in Charleston. She had been only a girl of about her age when she remembered her.
But then what had become of her mother? Why had she gone away?
Again the girl picked up her letter, for the last few sheets must explain.
This portion was hardest of the story to understand, but Sonya Valesky had tried to make it clear.