Trirodov surveyed her with admiration and said quietly:
“Katya, you are as handsome as always.”
Alkina was mistrustful.
“It’s true, isn’t it, that clothes have too long cramped my body and injured the skin. How can my body be handsome?”
“You are graceful and flexible,” answered Trirodov. “The lines of your body are somewhat elongated but wholly elastic. If any one were to measure your body he would find no error in its proportions.”
Alkina scrutinized herself attentively and went on incredulously:
“The lines are good—but the colour? I believe you once said that Russians often have unpleasant complexions. When I look on the whiteness of my body I am reminded of plaster of paris, and I begin to weep because I am so ugly.”
“No, Katya,” asserted Trirodov. “The whiteness of your body is not like plaster of paris. It is marble, slightly rose-tinged. It is milk poured into a pink crystal vase. It is mountain snow lit up with the last glow of sunset. It is a white reverie suffused with rose desire.”
Alkina smiled joyously and flushed lightly as she asked him:
“Will you take a few snapshots of me to-day? Otherwise I shall weep, because I am so ugly and so meagre that you do not wish to recall sometimes my face and my body.”