Her features might have been considered too masculine and almost harsh had it not been for her tall stately figure, her powerful chest and shoulders, and especially the severe yet tender expression of her long dark eyes which were darkly shadowed beneath their black brows, and for the gentle expression of her mouth and smile.

She rarely smiled, but her smile was always striking.

She seemed to radiate virginal strength and health.
All the girls were good-looking, but they themselves and Beletski, and the orderly when he brought in the spice-cakes, all involuntarily gazed at Maryanka, and anyone addressing the girls was sure to address her.
She seemed a proud and happy queen among them.
Beletski, trying to keep up the spirit of the party, chattered incessantly, made the girls hand round chikhir, fooled about with them, and kept making improper remarks in French about Maryanka's beauty to Olenin, calling her 'yours' (la votre), and advising him to behave as he did himself.

Olenin felt more and more uncomfortable.

He was devising an excuse to get out and run away when Beletski announced that Ustenka, whose saint's day it was, must offer chikhir to everybody with a kiss.