Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/268

Rh bent card, and all at once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I could not help dropping my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally half closed, opened to their full extent, her face was completely transfigured; it was as though it were flooded with light.

'What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar?' she asked after a brief pause. 'You thought ill of me, I expect?'

'I princess  I thought nothing  how can I? ' I answered in confusion.

'Listen,' she rejoined. 'You don't know me yet. I 'm a very strange person; I like always to be told the truth. You, I have just heard, are sixteen, and I am twenty-one: you see I 'm a great deal older than you, and so you ought always to tell me the truth and to do what I tell you,' she added. 'Look at me: why don't you look at me?'

I was still more abashed; however, I raised my eyes to her. She smiled, not her former smile, but a smile of approbation. 'Look at me,' she said, dropping her voice caressingly: 'I don't dislike that I like your face; I have a presentiment we shall be friends. But do you like me?' she added slyly.

'Princess ' I was beginning.

'In the first place, you must call me Zinaïda