But without criticising her cousin's charms, Mascha only calls out enthusiastically and childishly: "Oh, Anna, how lovely you look--oh, how lovely! What a shame that I am not old enough to wear black!"
"Do not act as if you had never seen a well-dressed woman before," Anna whispers to her impatiently. "You behave like a village girl."
And Mascha blushes and lowers her head. During this skirmish between the two cousins, Madame Jeliagin has welcomed Bärenburg in the most friendly manner; now Anna stretches out her hand with the manner of an empress conferring a favor. "It is very nice in you, Count, to have drawn a mark through our old cotillon quarrel." And turning to the others, she explains: "This autumn in Spaa, at a ball of the Marquise d'Arly, I had no favor left for Count Bärenburg. He--h-m!--did me the honor to be mortally offended at it." Bärenburg, who has forgotten the whole affair as completely as the date of Shakespeare's birth, bows deeply, and murmurs something. Suddenly Anna turns critically to her cousin. "But, Marie," she exclaims, looking at the thick string of pearls around Mascha's round throat, "what were you thinking of to adorn yourself with wax pearls like an Indian?"
"Wax pearls?" burst out Mascha, indignantly. "They are the pearls which our dear dead empress gave papa for mamma once when he played at court. They are wonderful pearls!"
"I had already noticed them. I have seldom seen such beautiful ones," says Bärenburg. "My mother possesses a similar string, but only wears them on great occasions."
"My mamma wore them day and night, from the hour when papa hung them around her neck," announces Mascha, cordially. "Mamma told me at first she was frightened at the gift, and said pearls mean tears; then papa kissed the pearls and replied: 'Yes, but tears of joy.' Do you remember, papa?" asks she, looking up at him.
"Yes," says he, shortly.
"And when, two years before her death, she hung the pearls round my neck, she also kissed them, and said, with her dear smile: 'Do not forget, Maschenka, they are tears of joy!' Since then I have never parted with them."
"That is all very pretty and poetic," replies Anna, condescendingly, "but as you cannot tell this touching commentary to your splendor to every one, I would advise you to take off the pearls for this evening. It is absolutely unsuitable for a girl of your age to wear such costly ornaments. You are, without that, dressed absurdly elegantly--c'est d'un goût douteux!"
"Take off my pearls!" calls out Mascha, unspeakably vexed at Anna's condescending tone, with a violence which plainly betrays the dangerous vehemence of her nature inherited from her father. "No, never! Never!" she repeats, seizing the necklace with both hands. "I would rather stay in my room the whole evening and not show myself, if you are afraid I might shame you."