utness 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.

I had imagined that Lubov Sergievna, as my friend's friend, would at
once say something friendly and familiar to me; yet, after gazing at me
fixedly for a while, as though in doubt whether the remark she was about
to make to me would not be too friendly, she at length asked me what
faculty I was in. After that she stared at me as before, in evident
hesitation as to whether or not to say something civil and familiar,
until, remarking her perplexity, I besought her with a look to speak
freely. Yet all she then said was, "They tell me the Universities pay
very little attention to science now," and turned away to call her
little dog.

All that evening she spoke only in disjointed fragments of this
kind--fragments which had no connection either with the point or with
one another; yet I had such faith in Dimitri, and he so often kept
looking from her to me with an expression which mutely asked me, "Now,
what do you think of that?" that, though I entirely failed to persuade
myself that in Lubov Sergievna there was anything to speak of, I could
not bear to express the thought, even to myself.

As for the last member of the family, Varenika, she was a well-developed
girl of sixteen. The only good features in her were a pair of dark-grey
eyes,--which, in their expression of gaiety mingled with quiet
attention, greatly resembled those of her aunt--a long coil of flaxen
hair, and extremely delicate, beautiful hands.

"I expect, Monsieur Nicolas, you find it wearisome to hear a story begun
from the middle?" said Sophia Ivanovna with her good-natured sigh as she
turned over some pieces of clothing which she