Publisher's Synopsis
She was about to make a very positive assertion, when a slender, fashionably dressed man, with a very high hat and faultless gloves, passed by them, greeted the princess respectfully and, with a slight squint, measured Lensky from head to foot. Lensky recognized in him an officer of the guard, Count Konstantin Paulovitch Pachotin and remembered last winter, during the season in St. Petersburg, he paid court to Natalie. The scrutinizing look of the young man vexed him beyond bounds; everything looked red before him. "Ah! he here?" he asked the young princess with mocking emphasis. "May one congratulate you?"
She frowned and turned away her head. "No!" murmured she.
"Perhaps."
"Say positively, I beg you and throw the traditional soldo in the fountain."
She was charming. She wore a brown velvet bonnet that was fastened under the chin with broad ribbons. She had pushed back her veil and the transparent brown gauze shining in the sun formed a golden background for her pretty, pale face.
