... But what can be this era of disembodied
concord you are looking forward to. Life is a thing of form. It has its
plastic shape and a definite intellectual aspect. The most idealistic
conceptions of love and forbearance must be clothed in flesh as it were
before they can be made understandable."
I took my leave of Mrs. Haldin, whose beautiful lips never stirred. She
smiled with her eyes only. Nathalie Haldin went with me as far as the
door, very amiable.
"Mother imagines that I am the slavish echo of my brother Victor. It
is not so. He understands me better than I can understand him. When he
joins us and you come to know him you will see what an exceptional soul
it is." She paused. "He is not a strong man in the conventional sense,
you know," she added. "But his character is without a flaw."
"I believe that it will not be difficult for me to make friends with
your brother Victor."
"Don't expect to understand him quite," she said, a little maliciously.
"He is not at all--at all--western at bottom."
And on this unnecessary warning I left the room with another bow in
the doorway to Mrs. Haldin in her armchair by the window. The shadow of
autocracy all unperceived by me had already fallen upon the Boulevard
des Philosophes, in the free, independent and democratic city of
Geneva, where there is a quarter called "La Petite Russie.
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