Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com distressed him most was his being so short; he did not mind
so much his ‘hideous’ face, as being so short. On the wall in
a corner at home he had the year before made a pencil-mark
to show his height, and every two months since he anxiously
measured himself against it to see how much he had gained.
But alas! he grew very slowly, and this sometimes reduced
him almost to despair. His face was in reality by no means
‘hideous”; on the contrary, it was rather attractive, with a
fair, pale skin, freckled. His small, lively grey eyes had a
fearless look, and often glowed with feeling. He had rather
high cheekbones; small, very red, but not very thick, lips;
his nose was small and unmistakably turned up. ‘I’ve a reg-
ular pug nose, a regular pug nose,’ Kolya used to mutter to
himself when he looked in the looking-glass, and he always
left it with indignation. ‘But perhaps I haven’t got a clever
face?’ he sometimes thought, doubtful even of that. But it
must not be supposed that his mind was preoccupied with
his face and his height. On the contrary, however bitter the
moments before the looking-glass were to him, he quickly
forgot them, and forgot them for a long time, ‘abandoning
himself entirely to ideas and to real life,’ as he formulated
it to himself.
Alyosha came out quickly and hastened up to Kolya.
Before he reached him, Kolya could see that he looked de-
lighted. ‘Can he be so glad to see me?’ Kolya wondered,
feeling pleased. We may note here, in passing, that Alyo-
sha’s appearance had undergone a complete change since
we saw him last. He had abandoned his cassock and was
wearing now a wellcut coat, a soft, round hat, and his hair