Bourienne had already obtained all necessary information from the maid, Masha; they had learned what a handsome fellow the minister’s son was, with rosy cheeks and black eye-brows; how his papa had dragged his legs upstairs with difficulty, while he, like a young eagle, had flown up after him three steps at a time. On receiving these items of information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose eager voices were audible in the corridor, went into Princess Marya’s room.

“They are come, Marie, do you know?” said the little princess, waddling in and sinking heavily into an armchair. She was not wearing the gown in which she had been sitting in the morning, but had put on one of her best dresses. Her hair had been carefully arranged, and her face was full of an eager excitement, which did not, however, conceal its wasted and pallid look. In the smart clothes which she had been used to wear in Petersburg in society, the loss of her good looks was even more noticeable. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, had put some hardly perceptible finishing touches to her costume, which made her fresh, pretty face even more attractive.

“What, and you are staying just as you are, dear princess. They will come in a minute to tell us the gentlemen are in the drawing-room,” she began. “We shall have to go down, and you are doing nothing at all to your dress.”

The little princess got up from her chair, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and eagerly began to arrange what Princess Marya was to wear, and to put her ideas into practice. Princess Marya’s sense of personal dignity was wounded by her own agitation at the arrival of her suitor, and still more was she mortified that her two companions should not even conceive that she ought not to be so agitated. To have told them how ashamed she was of herself and of them would have been to betray her own excitement. Besides, to refuse to be dressed up, as they suggested, would have been exposing herself to reiterated raillery and insistence. She flushed; her beautiful eyes grew dim; her face was suffused with patches of crimson; and with the unbeautiful, victimised expression which was the one most often seen on her face, she abandoned herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Liza. Both women exerted themselves with perfect sincerity to make her look well. She was so plain that the idea of rivalry with her could never have entered their heads. Consequently it was with perfect sincerity, in the naïve and unhesitating conviction women have that dress can make a face handsome, that they set to work to attire her.

“No, really, ma bonne amie, that dress isn’t pretty,” said Liza, looking sideways at Princess Marya from a distance; “tell her to put on you your maroon velvet there. Yes, really! Why, you know, it may be the turning-point in your whole life. That one’s too light, it’s not right, no, it’s not!”

It was not the dress that was wrong, but the face and the whole figure of the princess, but that was not felt by Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess. They still fancied that if they were to put a blue ribbon in her hair, and do it up high, and to put the blue sash lower on the maroon dress and so on, then all would be well. They forgot that the frightened face and figure of Princess Marya could not be changed, and therefore, however presentable they might make the setting and decoration of the face, the face itself would still look piteous and ugly. After two or three changes, to which Princess Marya submitted passively, when her hair had been done on the top of her head (which completely changed and utterly disfigured her), and the blue sash and best maroon velvet dress had been put on, the little princess walked twice round, and with her little hand stroked out a fold here and pulled down the sash there, and gazed at her with her head first on one side and then on the other.

“No, it won’t do,” she said resolutely, throwing up her hands. “No, Marie, decidedly that does not suit you. I like you better in your little grey everyday frock. No, please do that for me. Katya,” she said to the maid, “bring the princess her grey dress, and look, Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I’ll arrange it,” she said, smiling with a foretaste of artistic pleasure. But when Katya brought the dress, Princess Marya was still sitting motionless before the looking-glass, looking at her own face, and in the looking-glass she saw that there were tears in her eyes and her mouth was quivering, on the point of breaking into sobs.

“Come, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “one more little effort.”