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Updated: June 13, 2025
One of the first things that Vera Michailovna told me was that I was on no account to open my purse to him. I was not always able to keep my promise. On this particular evening of Bohun's arrival I came, by invitation, to supper. They had told me about their Englishman, and had asked me indeed to help the first awkward half-hour over the stile.
That again was utterly unlike her, and altogether I seemed to be seeing, this afternoon, some quite new Vera Michailovna, some one more intimate, more personal, more appealing. I realised suddenly that she had never before, at any period of our friendship, asked for my help not even for my sympathy.
"Never mind my character," I answered him; "all you've got to do is to leave Vera Michailovna alone. There'll be no wrecking of homes, unless you are the wrecker." He put his hand on my arm again. "Listen, Durward," he said, "I'll tell you a little story. I'm a doctor you know, and many curious things occur within my province.
Then there appeared a stout little man in a top hat who wished to recite verses of, I gathered, a violent indecency. I was uncomfortable about Vera Michailovna, but I need not have been. The indecency was of no importance to her, and she was interested in the human tragedy of the performer. Tragedy it was. The man was hungry and dirty and not far from tears.
There would be tea and games, perhaps at any rate every one would sit and sit until three or four if, for no other reason, simply because it demanded too much energy to rise and make farewells. But the spirit of the party was utterly dead.... The samovar hissed at the end of the table. Vera Michailovna sat there making tea for every one. I noticed that his eyes often wandered towards me.
The war came and Vera Michailovna declared that she could have lodgers no longer, and a terrible blow this was to Ivan Petrovitch. Then suddenly, towards the end of 1916, she changed her mind and announced to the Embassy that she was ready for any one whom they could send her. Henry Bohun was offered, accepted, and prepared for. Ivan Petrovitch was a happy man once more.
Of course it was not, he never had luck with an invention again, but he was bursting with pride and happiness, set up house for himself in a little flat on the Vassily Ostrov and met Vera Michailovna. I wish I could give some true idea of the change that came over him when he reached this part of his story.
His eyes continually sought her face; he had the eyes of a dog watching and waiting for its master's appreciative word. I had never before seen Vera Michailovna so fine and independent and, at the same time, so kind and gracious.
I discovered very quickly that Vera Michailovna kept the family purse, and one of the earliest sources of family trouble was, I fancy, his constant demands for money. Before the war he had, I believe, been drunk whenever it was possible.
And you pretend to be his friend, but you are his enemy if you try to have him sent back to England.... He must not go. For the matter of that, I will never see him again never if that is what you want. See, I promise you never never " She suddenly broke down she, Vera Michailovna, the proudest woman I had ever known, turning from me, her head in her hands, sobbing, her shoulders bent.
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