eased to follow the narrative and began to scrutinize the guests,
unnoticed by them or her son.

Pavel sat at Natasha's side. He was the handsomest of them all.
Natasha bent down, very low over the book. At times she tossed back
the thin curls that kept running down over her forehead, and lowered
her voice to say something not in the book, with a kind look at the
faces of her auditors. The Little Russian bent his broad chest over a
corner of the table, and squinted his eyes in the effort to see the
worn ends of his mustache, which he constantly twirled. Vyesovshchikov
sat on his chair straight as a pole, his palms resting on his knees,
and his pockmarked face, browless and thin-lipped, immobile as a mask.
He kept his narrow-eyed gaze stubbornly fixed upon the reflection of
his face in the glittering brass of the samovar. He seemed not even to
breathe. Little Somov moved his lips mutely, as if repeating to
himself the words in the book; and his curly-haired companion, with
bent body, elbows on knees, his face supported on his hands, smiled
abstractedly. One of the men who had entered at the same time as
Pavel, a slender young chap with red, curly hair and merry green eyes,
apparently wanted to say something; for he kept turning around
impatiently. The other, light-haired and closely cropped, stroked his
head with his hand and looked down on the floor so that his face
remained invisible.

It was warm in the room, and the atmosphere was genial. The mother
responded to this peculiar charm, which she had never before felt. She
was affected by the purling of Natasha's voice, mingled with the
quavering hum of the samovar, and recalled the noisy evening parties of
her youth--the coarseness of the young men, whose breath always smelled
of vodka--their cynical jokes. She remembered all this, and an
oppressive sense of pity for her own self gently stirred her worn,
outraged heart.

Before her rose the scene of the wooing of her husband. At one of the
parties he had seized her in a dark porch, and pressing her with his
whole body to the wall asked in a gruff, vexed voice:

"Will you marry me?"

She had been pained and had felt offended; but he rudely dug his
fingers into her flesh, snorted heavily, and breathed his hot, humid
breath into her face. She struggled to tear herself out of his grasp.

"Hold on!" he roared. "Answer me! Well?"

Out of breath, shamed and insulted, she remained silent.

"Don't put on a