regular,
though too large for a girl of seventeen. Specially beautiful was her
pure, smooth forehead above fine eyebrows, which seemed broken in the
middle. She spoke little, but listened to others, and fixed her eyes
on them as though she were forming her own conclusions. She would often
stand with listless hands, motionless and deep in thought; her face
at such moments showed that her mind was at work within.... A scarcely
perceptible smile would suddenly appear on her lips and vanish again;
then she would slowly raise her large dark eyes. '_Qu'a-vez-vous?_'
Mlle, Boncourt would ask her, and then she would begin to scold her,
saying that it was improper for a young girl to be absorbed and
to appear absent-minded. But Natalya was not absent-minded; on the
contrary, she studied diligently; she read and worked eagerly. Her
feelings were strong and deep, but reserved; even as a child she seldom
cried, and now she seldom even sighed and only grew slightly pale when
anything distressed her. Her mother considered her a sensible, good sort
of girl, calling her in a joke '_mon honnete homme de fille_' but had
not a very high opinion of her intellectual abilities. 'My Natalya
happily is cold,' she used to say, 'not like me--and it is better so.
She will be happy.' Darya Mihailovna was mistaken. But few mothers
understand their daughters.

Natalya loved Darya Mihailovna, but did not fully confide in her.

'You have nothing to hide from me,' Darya Mihailovna said to her once,
'or else you would be very reserved about it; you are rather a close
little thing.'

Natalya looked her mother in the face and thought, 'Why shouldn't I be
reserved?'

When Rudin met her on the terrace she was just going indoors with Mlle,
Boncourt to put on her hat and go out into the garden. Her morning
occupations were over. Natalya was not treated as a school-girl now.
Mlle, Boncourt had not given her lessons in mythology and geography for
a long while; but Natalya had every morning to read historical books,
travels, or other instructive works with her. Darya Mihailovna selected
them, ostensibly on a special system of her own. In reality she simply
gave Natalya everything which the French bookseller forwarded her from
Petersburg, except, of course, the novels of Dumas Fils and Co. These
novels Darya Mihailovna read herself. Mlle, Boncourt looked specially
severely and sourly through her spectacles when Natalya was reading
historical books; accordin