Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/272

260 anxious to find out where the governor's wife had gone with her daughter. But the ladies were not, it seemed, disposed to let him escape so easily, every one of them inwardly determined to use all those weapons so menacing to the peace of our hearts, and to turn her best points to the best possible advantage. I must observe that some ladies—I say some, that is, not all ladies—have a little weakness: if a lady notices anything particularly attractive in herself—whether lips or brow or hand—she is apt to imagine that her best point is conspicuous and is attracting the notice of every one, and that all are saying with one voice: 'Look, look, hasn't she a lovely Grecian nose!' or, 'What a smooth and fascinating brow!' One who has good shoulders is confident that all the young men will be completely captivated, and will be continually repeating when she passes: 'What marvellous shoulders she has!' and that they will not glance at her face, her hair, her nose, her brow, or if they do, it will be as at something quite apart. That is what some ladies imagine. Every lady took an inward vow to be as fascinating as possible in the dances, and to display in all the brilliance of its perfection whatever was most perfect in her. The post-master's wife put her head on one side so languishingly as she waltzed that it really gave one a feeling of something unearthly. One very amiable lady who had come with no idea of dancing at all on account of, as she herself expressed it, a slight incommodity in the shape of