Mariana ceased. Her wrath was choking her. She could not contain herself, and had resolved on giving full vent to it, but words failed her. Mariana belonged to a particular class of unfortunate beings, very plentiful in Russia, whom justice satisfies, but does not rejoice, while injustice, against which they are very sensitive, revolts them to their innermost being. All the time she was speaking, Nejdanov watched her intently. Her flushed face, her short, untidy hair, the tremulous twitching of her thin lips, struck him as menacing, significant, and beautiful. A ray of sunlight, broken by a net of branches, lay across her forehead like a patch of gold. And this tongue of fire seemed to be in keeping with the keen expression of her face, her fixed wide-open eyes, the earnest sound of her voice.
“Tell me why you think me unhappy,” Nejdanov observed at last. “Do you know anything about me?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know? Has anyone been talking to you about me?”
“I know about your birth.”
“Who told you?”
“Why, Valentina Mihailovna, of course, whom you admire so much. She mentioned in my presence, just in passing you know, but quite intentionally, that there was a very interesting incident in your life. She was not condoling the fact, but merely mentioned it as a person of advanced views who is above prejudice. You need not be surprised; in the same way she tells every visitor that comes that my father was sent to Siberia for taking bribes. However much she may think herself an aristocrat, she is nothing more than a mere scandal-monger and a poser. That is your Sistine Madonna!”
“Why is she mine in particular?”
Mariana turned away and resumed her walk down the path.
“Because you had such a long conversation together,” she said, a lump rising in her throat.