is bushy, small beard,
to which he had not become accustomed, and continually blinking, kept
looking out of the window.

It was toward the end of winter, when amidst the snowstorms and the
gloomy, frosty days, the approaching spring sent as a forerunner a
clear, warm, sunny day, or but an hour, yet so full of spring, so
eagerly young and beaming that sparrows on the streets lost their wits
for joy, and people seemed almost as intoxicated. And now the strange
and beautiful sky could be seen through an upper window which was
dust-covered and unwashed since the last summer. At first sight the sky
seemed to be milky-gray-smoke-colored--but when you looked longer the
dark blue color began to penetrate through the shade, grew into an ever
deeper blue--ever brighter, ever more intense. And the fact that it did
not reveal itself all at once, but hid itself chastely in the smoke of
transparent clouds, made it as charming as the girl you love. And Sergey
Golovin looked at the sky, tugged at his beard, blinked now one eye,
now the other, with its long, curved lashes, earnestly pondering over
something. Once he began to move his fingers rapidly and thoughtlessly,
knitted his brow in some joy, but then he glanced about and his joy died
out like a spark which is stepped upon. Almost instantly an earthen,
deathly blue, without first changing into pallor, showed through the
color of his cheeks. He clutched his downy hair, tore their roots
painfully with his fingers, whose tips had turned white. But the joy of
life and spring was stronger, and a few minutes later his frank young
face was again yearning toward the spring sky. The young, pale girl,
known only by the name of Musya, was also looking in the same direction,
at the sky. She was younger than Golovin, but she seemed older in her
gravity and in the darkness of her open, proud eyes. Only her very thin,
slender neck, and her delicate girlish hands spoke of her youth; but in
addition there was that ineffable something, which is youth itself,
and which sounded so distinctly in her clear, melodious voice, tuned
irreproachably like a precious instrument, every simple word, every
exclamation giving evidence of its musical timbre. She was very pale,
but it was not a deathly pallor, but that peculiar warm whiteness of a
person within whom, as it were, a great, strong fire is burning, whose
body glows transparently like fine Sevres porcelain. She sat almost
motionless, and only at times sh