There were many old men in white smocks and white
trousers and women in brightly-coloured kerchiefs. But, except for the
young birds, it was a silent place.
I had much business to carry through and saw the rest of our company
only at luncheon time; it was after luncheon that I had a little
conversation with Marie Ivanovna. She chose me quite deliberately from
the others, moved our chairs to the quieter end of the little balcony
where we were, planted her elbows on the table and stared into my face
with her large round credulous eyes. (I find on looking back, that I
have already used exactly those adjectives. That may stand: I mean
that, emphatically, and beyond every other impression she made, her
gaze declared that she was ready to believe anything that she were
told, and the more in the telling the better.)
She spoke, as always, with that sense of restrained, sharply
disciplined excitement, as though her eager vitality were some
splendid if ferocious animal struggling at its chain.
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