ever deeper blue-ever brighter, ever more intense. And the fact that
it did not reveal itself all at once, but hid itself chastely in the
smoke of transparent clouds, made it as charming as the girl you love.
And Sergey Golovin looked at the sky, tugged at his beard, blinked now
one eye, now the other, with its long, curved lashes, earnestly
pondering over something. Once he began to move his fingers rapidly
and thoughtlessly, knitted his brow in some joy, but then he glanced
about and his joy died out like a spark which is stepped upon. Almost
instantly an earthen, deathly blue, without first changing into
pallor, showed through the color of his cheeks. He clutched his downy
hair, tore their roots painfully with his fingers, whose tips had
turned white. But the joy of life and spring was stronger, and a few
minutes later his frank young face was again yearning toward the
spring sky. The young, pale girl, known only by the name of Musya, was
also looking in the same direction, at the sky. She was younger than
Golovin, but she seemed older in her gravity and in the darkness of
her open, proud eyes. Only her very thin, slender neck, and her
delicate girlish hands spoke of her youth; but in addition there was
that ineffable something, which is youth itself, and which
sounded so distinctly in her clear, melodious voice, tuned
irreproachably like a precious instrument, every simple word, every
exclamation giving evidence of its musical timbre. She was very pale,
but it was not a deathly pallor, but that peculiar warm whiteness of a
person within whom, as it were, a great, strong fire is burning, whose
body glows transparently like fine Sevres porcelain. She sat almost
motionless, and only at times she touched with an imperceptible
movement of her fingers the circular mark on the middle finger of her
right hand, the mark of a ring which had. been recently removed.

She gazed at the sky without caressing kindness or joyous