Elena Kirillovna looks out of the window. She is returning, as it were,
once more from some dark, abstract world to the bright,
profusely-coloured, resonant impressions of a rough, cheery, not
altogether disagreeable life.
Small white clouds tinged with red float slowly in the heights and
merge imperceptibly in the vivid blue. Ablaze like a piece of coal at
red heat their soul seems to fuse with their cold white bodies, to
consume them as well as itself with fire, and to sink exhausted in the
cold blue heights. The sun, as yet invisible behind the left wing of
the house, has already begun to pour upon the garden its warm and
glowing waves of laughter, joy and light, animating the flowers and
birds.
“Well, it’s time to dress,” Elena Kirillovna says to herself.
She rings.
Soon Glasha appears and helps Elena Kirillovna to dress.
At last she is ready. She casts a final look in the mirror to see that
everything is in order.
Elena Kirillovna’s hair is very neatly combed, and lightly brushed down
with a cosmetic. This makes it shine and appear as though it were glued
together. At her every movement in the light there is visible, from
right to left, a slender silver thread, due to the reflection of light
at the parting of the smoothed coiffure. Her face shows slight traces
of powder.
Elena Kirillovna’s dress is always of a light colour, when not actually
white, and of the simplest cut. The small soft ruffle of the broad
collar hides her neck and chin. She has already substituted for her
dressing slippers a pair of light summer shoes.