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.
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