"In the more remote Magyar villages, news of the world comes to the people by means of a sort of minstrel who is called the Cobzar. He is to them not only newsbringer, but historian and poet and philosopher as well. He is treated with respect, they reward his singing with food and wine and a place beside the fire, for it is an honor to be born a Cobzar. But not always a happy honor, Joan. People do not listen to singing that comes out of an empty heart. It is the Cobzar's duty to tell them the story of themselves, and that is only the story of himself, wrought into many forms. Their fears and joys, their failures and their suffering and their hopes--he must be part of it all, and yet apart, that he may not only understand but watch, remembering always his mission to bring life to the knowledge of those who live." He quoted for her then some lines which Joan never forgot: "Aime-moi, parce que j'ai besoin de ton amour pour mes chansons, Va t'en, parce que j'ai besoin de pleurer pour mes chansons, Meurs, parce que j'ai besoin de chanter la mort pour mes chansons, Car je suis le Cobzar." The water widened between them.... CHAPTER LVI All during her homeward journey Joan had the feeling that she was waking slowly from a long dream; such a dream as ether gives, more vivid than reality itself but impossible of recapture. As he came literally nearer, Archie grew to be the dominant figure in her thoughts rather than Nikolai, though Nikolai was always there; Archie under the new light her friend's parting words had shed upon him. It mortified her to realize that another, almost a stranger to him, should have read her husband better than she did. It occurred to her, too, that with Nikolai she had not left behind her all Romance. A man who was capable of such a sacrifice as Archie Blair's could not be entirely commonplace. Her eyes had been suddenly opened. Perhaps this was part of the help Nikolai had promised. Indeed, her sentiments toward her husband became rather puzzling, being composed so far as she could decipher them of a desire to comfort him for the loss of herself, combined with a desire to be comforted by him for the loss of Stefan.... Her fellow-travelers eyed Joan with more than the usual interest she invariably excited among strangers; but to no avail. It was a time when what few barriers exist on shipboard at best went down in the sharing of a common peril, the menace of the submarine. Not so with Joan, however. She seemed unaware of friendly advances or invidious criticism: wrapped in a curious aloofness, from danger and from her fellowman alike. Nor was it an aloofness that would pass.