I was not the only one to think the Armenian girl beautiful.  My grandfather, an old man of seventy, gruff and indifferent to women and the beauties of nature, looked caressingly at Masha for a full minute, and asked: 

“Is that your daughter, Avert Nazaritch?”

“Yes, she is my daughter,” answered the Armenian.

“A fine young lady,” said my grandfather approvingly.

An artist would have called the Armenian girl’s beauty classical and severe, it was just that beauty, the contemplation of which—­God knows why!—­inspires in one the conviction that one is seeing correct features; that hair, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, bosom, and every movement of the young body all go together in one complete harmonious accord in which nature has not blundered over the smallest line.  You fancy for some reason that the ideally beautiful woman must have such a nose as Masha’s, straight and slightly aquiline, just such great dark eyes, such long lashes, such a languid glance; you fancy that her black curly hair and eyebrows go with the soft white tint of her brow and cheeks as the green reeds go with the quiet stream.  Masha’s white neck and her youthful bosom were not fully developed, but you fancy the sculptor would need a great creative genius to mold them.  You gaze, and little by little the desire comes over you to say to Masha something extraordinarily pleasant, sincere, beautiful, as beautiful as she herself was.

At first I felt hurt and abashed that Masha took no notice of me, but was all the time looking down; it seemed to me as though a peculiar atmosphere, proud and happy, separated her from me and jealously screened her from my eyes.

“That’s because I am covered with dust,” I thought, “am sunburnt, and am still a boy.”

But little by little I forgot myself, and gave myself up entirely to the consciousness of beauty.  I thought no more now of the dreary steppe, of the dust, no longer heard the buzzing of the flies, no longer tasted the tea, and felt nothing except that a beautiful girl was standing only the other side of the table.

I felt this beauty rather strangely.  It was not desire, nor ecstacy, nor enjoyment that Masha excited in me, but a painful though pleasant sadness.  It was a sadness vague and undefined as a dream.  For some reason I felt sorry for myself, for my grandfather and for the Armenian, even for the girl herself, and I had a feeling as though we all four had lost something important and essential to life which we should never find again.  My grandfather, too, grew melancholy; he talked no more about manure or about oats, but sat silent, looking pensively at Masha.