Explore "Boris Lensky" by Ossip Schubin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Except for a few trifles, the dinner is prettily served, abundant and good. The mood prevailing leaves so much the more to be desired. Lensky, who is vexed that Maschenka has made a scene before the "stupid, arrogant Austrian," says nothing. Old Madame Jeliagin is consumed with anxiety lest the service be broken. Mascha is awkward and shy as an eight-year-old child who is ashamed of her naughtiness. Only Anna feels thoroughly at ease, for it always has an exhilarating effect upon her to sit between two handsome and polite young men, as to-day between Nikolai and Baerenburg; but the latter looks quite uninterruptedly over at Mascha.
"A charming creature, this Mascha," he thinks to himself. It pleases him to repeat her strange name to himself. "Yes, a charming creature. What a complexion, what a charming little mouth, and what a delightful expression, changing incessantly from petulance to moving tenderness, in her eyes! What shoulders! What a shame!"