‘She wanted to go away with me to some more free and natural place. Perhaps under the sky in forests of pine and birch, where a man and a woman can join body and soul and find out what work they have to do in the world.’ ‘Why did she send the children back to Moscow?’ ‘I supposed that, since I had failed her, she didn’t want to take them on with her to Norbury.’ ‘My God, they’d have been better off in Norbury than with you in the middle of a forest of pine and birch. All right, you arranged to meet Nellie off the Berlin train at Mozhaisk. Why didn’t you?’
