the present moment was important: to begin with, he had to show himself at his best, to show his independence, “Or he’ll think of me as thirteen and take me for a boy, like the rest of them. And what are these boys to him? I shall ask him when I get to know him. It’s a pity I am so short, though. Tuzikov is younger than I am, yet he is half a head taller. But I have a clever face. I am not good-looking. I know I’m hideous, but I’ve a clever face. I mustn’t talk too freely; if I fall into his arms all at once, he may think—Tfoo! how horrible if he should think—!”
Such were the thoughts that excited Kolya while he was doing his utmost to assume the most independent air. What 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 gray 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 regular pug nose, a regular pug nose,” Kolya used to mutter to himself when he looked in the