of my hand. It is a case of sympathy and
antipathy."

Mariana looked sternly at Valentina Mihailovna and Valentina Mihailovna
looked at her. These two women did not love one another.

Compared to her aunt Mariana seemed plain. She had a round face, a large
aquiline nose, big bright grey eyes, fine eyebrows, and thin lips.
Her thick brown hair was cut short; she seemed retiring, but there was
something strong and daring, impetuous and passionate, in the whole of
her personality. She had tiny little hands and feet, and her healthy,
lithesome little figure reminded one of a Florentine statuette of the
sixteenth century. Her movements were free and graceful.

Mariana's position in the Sipiagin's house was a very difficult one. Her
father, a brilliant man of Polish extraction, who had attained the rank
of general, was discovered to have embezzled large state funds. He
was tried and convicted, deprived of his rank, nobility, and exiled
to Siberia. After some time he was pardoned and returned, but was too
utterly crushed to begin life anew, and died in extreme poverty. His
wife, Sipiagin's sister, did not survive the shock of the disgrace and
her husband's death, and died soon after. Uncle Sipiagin gave a home to
their only child, Mariana. She loathed her life of dependence and longed
for freedom with all the force of her upright soul. There was a constant
inner battle between her and her aunt. Valentina Mihailovna looked upon
her as a nihilist and freethinker, and Mariana detested her aunt as
an unconscious tyrant. She held aloof from her uncle and, indeed, from
everyone else in the house. She held aloof, but was not afraid of them.
She was not timid by nature.

"Antipathy is a strange thing," Kollomietzev repeated. "Everybody knows
that I am a deeply religious man, orthodox in the fullest sense of the
word, but the sight of a priest's flowing locks drives me nearly mad. It
makes me boil over with rage."

"I believe hair in general has an irritating effect upon you, Simion
Petrovitch," Mariana remarked. "I feel sure you can't bear to see it cut
short like mine."

Valentina Mihailovna lifted her eyebrows slowly, then dropped her head,
as if astonished at the freedom with which modern young girls entered
into conversation. Kollomietzev smiled condescendingly.

"Of course," he said, "I can't help feeling sorry for beautiful curls
such as yours, Mariana Vikentievna, falling under the merciless snip of
a pair of scissors,