Rising from the floor she said plaintively: "I am too old for that--ignorant and old." Pavel spoke more and more often and at greater length, discussed more and more hotly, and--grew thinner and thinner.

It seemed to his mother that when he spoke to Natasha or looked at her his eyes turned softer, his voice sounded fonder, and his entire bearing became simpler.
"Heaven grant!" she thought; and imagining Natasha as her daughter-in-law, she smiled inwardly.
Whenever at the meetings the disputes waxed too hot and stormy, the Little Russian stood up, and rocking himself to and fro like the tongue of a bell, he spoke in his sonorous, resonant voice simple and good words which allayed their excitement and recalled them to their purpose.

Vyesovshchikov always kept hurrying everybody on somewhere.
He and the red-haired youth called Samoylov were the first to begin all disputes.

On their side were always Ivan Bukin, with the round head and the white eyebrows and lashes, who looked as if he had been hung out to dry, or washed out with lye; and the curly-headed, lofty-browed Fedya Mazin.

Modest Yakob Somov, always smoothly combed and clean, spoke little and briefly, with a quiet, serious voice, and always took sides with Pavel and the Little Russian.
Sometimes, instead of Natasha, Alexey Ivanovich, a native of some remote government, came from the city.