"Not interesting," I would have judged her, but I had during my stay no personal talk with her.

It was only after my visit that I was told that this quiet woman was the passion of Andrey Vassilievitch's life.
He had been over thirty when he had married her; she had been married before, had been treated, I was informed, with great brutality by her husband who had left her.

She had then divorced him.

Praise of her, I discovered, was universal.

She was apparently a woman who created love in others, but this by no marked virtues or cleverness; no one said of her that she was "brilliant," "charming," "fascinating." People spoke of her as though here at least there was some one of whom they were sure, some one too who made them the characters they wished to be, some one finally who had not surrendered herself, who gave them her love but not her whole soul, keeping always mystery enough to maintain her independence.