“There is some one who wants to speak to you,” she said.
“Oh! I can’t go now,” replied Maria Ivanovna.
“But they are waiting,” persisted Lida, almost hysterically.
Maria Ivanovna got up quickly.
Sanine watched Lida, and his nostrils were dilated.
“Won’t you come into the garden? It’s so hot in here,” said Lida, and without looking round to see if they were coming, she walked out through the veranda.
As if hypnotized, the men followed her, bound, seemingly, with the tresses of her hair, so that she could draw them whither she wished. Volochine walked first, ensnared by her beauty, and apparently oblivious of aught else.
Lida sat down in the rocking-chair under the linden-tree and stretched out her pretty little feet clad in black open-work stockings and tan shoes. It was as if she had two natures; the one overwhelmed with modesty and shame, the other, full of self-conscious coquetry. The first nature prompted her to look with disgust upon men, and life, and herself.
“Well, Pavel Lvovitsch,” she asked, as her eyelids drooped, “What impression has our poor little out-of-the-way town made upon you?”
“The impression which probably he experiences who in the depth of the forest suddenly beholds a radiant flower,” replied Volochine, rubbing his hands.