She got up and began to walk up and down the room.  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.  She was so strong and reliant and independent, cared so little for the opinion of others, and shut down so closely upon herself her private life, that I could not have imagined her asking help from any one.  And of the two of us, she was the man, the strong determined soul, the brave and self-reliant character.  It seemed to me ludicrous that she should ask for my help.  Nevertheless I was greatly touched.

“I would do anything for you,” I said.

She turned to me, a splendid figure, her head, with its crown of black hair, lifted, her hands on her hips, her eyes gravely regarding me.

“There are three things,” she said, “perhaps all of them nothing....  And yet all of them disturbing.  First my husband.  He’s beginning to drink again.”

“Drink?” I said; “where can he get it from?”

“I don’t know.  I must discover.  But it isn’t the actual drinking.  Every one in our country drinks if he can.  Only what has made my husband break his resolve?  He was so proud of it.  You know how proud he was.  And he lies about it.  He says he is not drinking.  He never used to lie about anything.  That was not one of his faults.”

“Perhaps his inventions,” I suggested.

“Pouf!  His inventions!  You know better than that, Ivan Andreievitch.  No, no.  It is something....  He’s not himself.  Well, then, secondly, there’s Nina.  The other night did you notice anything?”

“Only that she lost her temper.  But she’s always doing that.”

“No, it’s more than that.  She’s unhappy, and I don’t like the life she’s leading.  Always out at cinematographs and theatres and restaurants, and with a lot of boys who mean no harm, I know—­but they’re idiotic, they’re no good....  Now, when the war’s like this and the suffering....  To be always at the cinematograph!  But I’ve lost my authority over her, Ivan Andreievitch.  She doesn’t care any longer what I say to her.  Once, and not so long ago, I meant so much to her.  She’s changed, she’s harder, more careless, more selfish.  You know, Ivan Andreievitch, that Nina’s simply everything to me.  I don’t talk about myself, do I? but at least I can say that since—­oh, many, many years, she’s been the whole world and more than the whole world to me.  Our mother and father were killed in a railway accident coming up from Odessa when Nina was very small, and since then Nina’s been mine—­all mine!”