miled graciously. 'Certainly,' she said, and she
looked at Arkady not exactly with an air of superiority, but as married
sisters look at very young brothers. Madame Odintsov was a little older
than Arkady--she was twenty-nine--but in her presence he felt himself a
schoolboy, a little student, so that the difference in age between them
seemed of more consequence. Matvy Ilyitch approached her with a
majestic air and ingratiating speeches. Arkady moved away, but he still
watched her; he could not take his eyes off her even during the
quadrille. She talked with equal ease to her partner and to the grand
official, softly turned her head and eyes, and twice laughed softly.
Her nose--like almost all Russian noses--was a little thick; and her
complexion was not perfectly clear; Arkady made up his mind, for all
that, that he had never before met such an attractive woman. He could
not get the sound of her voice out of his ears; the very folds of her
dress seemed to hang upon her differently from all the rest--more
gracefully and amply--and her movements were distinguished by a
peculiar smoothness and naturalness.

Arkady felt some timidity in his heart when at the first sounds of the
mazurka he began to sit it out beside his partner; he had prepared to
enter into a conversation with her, but he only passed his hand through
his hair, and could not find a single word to say. But his timidity and
agitation did not last long; Madame Odintsov's tranquillity gained upon
him too; before a quarter of an hour had passed he was telling her
freely about his father, his uncle, his life in Petersburg and in the
country. Madame Odintsov listened to him with courteous sympathy,
slightly opening and closing her fan; his talk was broken off when
partners came for her; Sitnikov, among others, twice asked her. She
came back, sat down again, took up her fan, and her bosom did not even
heave more rapidly, while Arkady fell to chattering again, filled
through and through by the happiness of being near her, talking to her,
looking at her eyes, her lovely brow, all her sweet, dignified, clever
face. She said little, but her words showed a knowledge of life; from
some of her observations Arkady gathered that this young woman had
already felt and thought much....

'Who is that you were standing with?' she asked him, 'when Mr. Sitnikov
brought you to me?'

'Did you notice him?' Arkady asked in his turn. 'He has a splendid
face, hasn't he? That's Bazarov