The Brothers Karamazov‘beast,’ as Ivan had called her half an hour before. And yet
one would have thought the creature standing before him
most simple and ordinary, a good-natured, kind woman,
handsome certainly, but so like other handsome ordinary
women! It is true she was very, very good-looking with that
Russian beauty so passionately loved by many men. She was
a rather tall woman, though a little shorter than Katerina
Ivanovna, who was exceptionally tall. She had a full figure,
with soft, as it were, noiseless, movements, softened to a pe-
culiar over-sweetness, like her voice. She moved, not like
Katerina Ivanovna, with a vigorous, bold step, but noise-
lessly. Her feet made absolutely no sound on the floor. She
sank softly into a low chair, softly rustling her sumptuous
black silk dress, and delicately nestling her milk-white neck
and broad shoulders in a costly cashmere shawl. She was
twenty-two years old, and her face looked exactly that age.
She was very white in the face, with a pale pink tint on her
cheeks. The modelling of her face might be said to be too
broad, and the lower jaw was set a trifle forward. Her up-
per lip was thin, but the slightly prominent lower lip was at
least twice as full, and looked pouting. But her magnificent,
abundant dark brown hair, her sable-coloured eyebrows
and charming greyblue eyes with their long lashes would
have made the most indifferent person, meeting her casu-
ally in a crowd in the street, stop at the sight of her face and
remember it long after. What struck Alyosha most in that
face was its expression of childlike good nature. There was
a childlike look in her eyes, a look of childish delight. She
came up to the table, beaming with delight and seeming to