第38章

THE NECHLUDOFFS

From the first, the member of this company who struck me the most was Lubov Sergievna, who, holding a lapdog in her arms and wearing stout laced boots, was the last of the four ladies to ascend the staircase, and twice stopped to gaze at me intently and then kiss her little dog.She was anything but good-looking, since she was red-haired, thin, short, and slightly crooked.What made her plain face all the plainer was the queer way in which her hair was parted to one side (it looked like the wigs which bald women contrive for themselves).However much I should have liked to applaud my friend, I could not find a single comely feature in her.Even her brown eyes, though expressive of good-

humour, were small and dull--were, in fact, anything but pretty;

while her hands (those most characteristic of features), were though neither large nor ill-shaped, coarse and red.

As soon as we reached the verandah, each of the ladies, except Dimitri's sister Varenika--who also had been regarding me attentively out of her large, dark-grey eyes--said a few words to me before resuming her occupation, while Varenika herself began to read aloud from a book which she held on her lap and steadied with her finger.

The Princess Maria Ivanovna was a tall, well-built woman of forty.To judge by the curls of half-grey hair which descended below her cap one might have taken her for more, but as soon as ever one observed the fresh, extraordinarily tender, and almost wrinkleless face, as well as, most of all, the lively, cheerful sparkle of the large eyes, one involuntarily took her for less.

Her eyes were black and very frank, her lips thin and slightly severe, her nose regular and slightly inclined to the left, and her hands ringless, large, and almost like those of a man, but with finely tapering fingers.She wore a dark-blue dress fastened to the throat and sitting closely to her firm, still youthful waist--a waist which she evidently pinched.Lastly, she held herself very upright, and was knitting a garment of some kind.As soon as I stepped on to the verandah she took me by the hand, drew me to her as though wishing to scrutinise me more closely, and said, as she gazed at me with the same cold, candid glance as her son's, that she had long known me by report from Dimitri, and that therefore, in order to make my acquaintance thoroughly, she had invited me to stay these twenty-four hours in her house.

"Do just as you please here," she said, "and stand on no ceremony whatever with us, even as we shall stand on none with you.Pray walk, read, listen, or sleep as the mood may take you."

Sophia Ivanovna was an old maid and the Princess's younger sister, though she looked the elder of the two.She had that exceedingly overstuffed appearance which old maids always present who are short of stature but wear corsets.It seemed as though her healthiness had shifted upwards to the point of choking her, her short, fat hands would not meet below her projecting bust, and the line of her waist was scarcely visible at all.

Notwithstanding that the Princess Maria Ivanovna had black hair and eyes, while Sophia Ivanovna had white hair and large, vivacious, tranquilly blue eyes (a rare combination), there was a great likeness between the two sisters, for they had the same expression, nose, and lips.The only difference was that Sophia's nose and lips were a trifle coarser than Maria's, and that, when she smiled, those features inclined towards the right, whereas Maria's inclined towards the left.Sophia, to judge by her dress and coiffure, was still youthful at heart, and would never have displayed grey curls, even if she had possessed them.

Yet at first her glance and bearing towards me seemed very proud, and made me nervous, whereas I at once felt at home with the Princess.Perhaps it was only Sophia's stoutness and a certain resemblance to portraits of Catherine the Great that gave her, in my eyes, a haughty aspect, but at all events I felt quite intimidated when she looked at me intently and said, "Friends of our friends are our friends also." I became reassured and changed my opinion about her only when, after saying those words, she opened her mouth and sighed deeply.It may be that she owed her habit of sighing after every few words--with a great distention of the mouth and a slight drooping of her large blue eyes--to her stoutness, yet it was none the less one which expressed so much good-humour that I at once lost all fear of her, and found her actually attractive.Her eyes were charming, her voice pleasant and musical, and even the flowing lines of her fullness seemed to my youthful vision not wholly lacking in beauty.