Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
She was seated at the end of the sofa, and, with her head bent, was
slowly sipping a cup of tea. Her thick black hair, of which she had
an abundance, hung over her shoulders, the ends touching the bottom
of the sofa. When she rose it almost reached to her knees. The color
of her face, a golden brown, like that of the Spaniards, proclaimed
her Southern origin, her father and grandfather having been political
refugees from Montenegro who had settled in Russia. There was nothing
Russian, in fact, in any feature of her face. With her large and black
eyebrows, shaped like a sickle as though she kept them always raised,
there was something haughty and daring about her, which struck one at
first sight, and gave her the appearance of the women belonging to her
native land. From her new country she had derived, however, a pair of
blue eyes, which always appeared half-closed by their long lashes, and
cast flitting shadows upon her soft cheeks when she moved her eyelids,
and a lithe, delicate, and rather slim figure, which somewhat relieved
the severe and rigid expression of her face. She had, too, a certain
unconscious charm, slightly statuesque, which is often met with among
women from the South.
Gazing at this stately face, to which a regular nose with wide nostrils
gave a somewhat aquiline shape, I thought that this was precisely
what Olga Liubatovitch ought to be as I had pictured her from the
account of her adventures. But on a sudden she smiled, and I no longer
recognised her. She smiled, not only with the full vermilion lips of a
brunette, but also with her blue eyes, with her rounded cheeks, with
every muscle of her face, which was suddenly lit up and irradiated like
that of a child.
When she laughed heartily she closed her eyes, bashfully bent her head,
and covered her mouth with her hand or her arm, exactly as our shy
country lasses do. On a sudden, however, she composed herself, and her
face darkened and became gloomy, serious, almost stern, as before.
I had a great desire to hear her voice, in order to learn whether it
corresponded with either of the two natures revealed by these sudden
changes. But I had no opportunity of gratifying this desire. Olga did
not open her mouth the whole evening. Her taciturnity did not proceed
from indifference, for she listened attentively to the conversation,
and her veiled eyes were turned from side to side. It did not seem,
either, to arise from restraint. It was due rather to the absence of
any motive for speaking. She seemed to be quite content to listen and
reflect, and her serious mouth appeared to defy all attempts to open it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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