“Goodbye, Konstantin Konstantinovich.” Dina stood up and walked stately out of the auditorium.

Click… click… click… her heels counted the distance from the table to the door, from this year’s last exam and until next year, the final year of university.

Dina could physically feel Konstantin Konstantinovich’s eyes on her calves. As she was closing the door behind her, Dina turned around and could verify that she was right.

That was what would not let Dina go from the cloudy late spring of the present into the sunny summer future. The note, inviting her on a date with the most gorgeous but also the most fickle – so her not-overly-experienced heart told her – the most fickle man in the world. And this man’s undisguised interest in her appearance, or to be more exact, her legs.

All this thrilled Dina and made her waver between sweet anticipation and vague fears that sent chills down her spine. And to feel sorry that the next academic year was so far away…

Why, why would he want her? Hasn’t he got anyone else to go to the movies with? It is not like there was a lack of beauties at their university or even the whole big city.

“Don’t think about it!” she heard suddenly. It was her Inner Voice. “Do you want to go on this date?”

“Yes… I do.”

“Then go. Don’t worry about the other beauties for the moment.”

Dina did not even consider herself cute.

Not because of an inferiority complex, so often present in young ladies, who were not fortunate to become the center of universal male attention. Not at all. The reason was that Dina’s ideas of beauty were based on such unattainable ideals that even the girls others considered beautiful and attractive did not deserve such labels in her opinion. Perhaps only Rimma Yakovleva, the second-year girl that Dina shared a room with, could be called cute… Therefore, there was no point in getting upset if you weren’t born looking like Anna Magnani! You had to be satisfied with what you had.

It was Anna Magnani who was the benchmark of female beauty for Dina, and not Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren, whom all the girls her age were obsessed with.

“She is hideous like Baba Yaga!” laughed her classmates at first, and then the girls at university, looking at the portrait of the little-known actress.

“You just don’t know anything about beauty!” replied Dina with a quiet dignity and the unwavering certainty in her right to have an opinion that differed from the majority.

She did not become offended. What did she have to be offended about? The fact that they lacked the emotional subtlety to sense – sense rather than see – what true beauty was? She should not be offended by them but pity them.

Dina did not yet have a benchmark for male beauty. Nevertheless, the sickly-sweet blue-eyed Frenchman that everyone swooned over conjured up in her a feeling of dislike, almost disgust. Muslim Magomaev, on the other hand, whom Dina had only seen in magazine photographs, but knew and loved his voice, thrilled Dina. And Jean Marais… Although Dina would not have been able to say with certainty whether it was the character of d’Artagnan, the valiant musketeer, that she loved, or the actor playing him. One way or another, in both d’Artagnan and Jean Marais, Dina sensed the important thing that every woman subconsciously seeks in a man: nobility and virtue, and the ability to protect the lady from all troubles. Dina did not yet know if nobility and inner strength went hand-in-hand with external beauty.

Dina was a slender girl, slightly taller than average, with great posture and the unhurried walk of someone who is sure of themselves. Her mom had taught her from childhood to watch her posture. She had also taught Dina everything else that made her extraordinarily unique: good manners, how to take care of herself, careful wardrobe selection, and later, make-up.

“Even if you’re no great beauty,” her mom always said, “your face, hair and nails should be always well looked after.”

“Even if you don’t have a lot of clothes,” she continued, “the ones you have should be of good quality.”

“Never,” her mom also said, “Never chase after the latest fashion. It’s better to find your own style and stick to it. You can make references to the current fashion trends perfectly well using accessories.”

How this provincial woman, who had never finished high school, could know these very un-Soviet things, Dina had no idea. And why, despite all this, her mother did not follow her own principles, was a mystery too.

Dina dressed with her mom’s help. Her mother sewed or re-sewed from her own clothes the items she thought a metropolitan student needed.

This included a formal suit, a few blouses, a few skirts, and an evening dress, of course. Only the outerwear and shoes were bought in the stores. Well, and the underwear, of course. For those things, Dina’s mom selflessly saved money from her modest salary, often denying herself some nice trifle.

“Sweetie,” her mom would say when Dina would try and dissuade her from a new purchase, “Dinochka, I’ve already proven myself, but you need to make a statement: a fine dress helps to impress!” And she would laugh a bright, child-like laugh.