Ex. 1. Read the text and answer the following questions

1. What American actress did one of the girl's boyfriends compare, her with and why?

2. What color were the girl's eyes?

3. Was the girl a blonde?

4. Could she have been a model?

5. Why didn't she become a ballet girl?

6. What made her look fit?

7. What kind of sport did she go in for?

8. What were the most remarkable things about the girl's figure?

Corporal (капрал) Romanova examined herself in a big oval looking-glass. One of her early boy-friends had said she looked like the young Greta Garbo. What nonsense! And yet tonight she did look rather well. Fine dark brown silken hair brushed straight back from a tall forehead and falling heavily down almost to the shoulders, there curled slightly up at the ends (Garbo had once done her hair like that and Corporal Romanova admitted to herself that she had copied it), a good, soft pale skin with an ivory sheen at the cheekbones (с оттенком слоновой кости); wide apart level eyes of the deepest blue under straight natural brows (she closed one eye after another. Yes, her lashes were certainly long enough!) a straight, rather imperious (властный) nose - and then the mouth. What about the mouth? Was it too broad? It must look terribly wide when she smiled. She smiled at herself in the mirror. Yes, it was wide, but then so had Garbo's been. At least her lips were full and finely etched (четко очерчены). There was a hint of a smile at the corners. No one could say it was a cold mouth! And the oval of her face. Was that too long? Was her chin a shade too sharp (чуть немного острый)? She swung her head sideways (качать головой из стороны в сторону) to see it in profile. The heavy curtain of hair (тяжелая завеса волос) swung forward and across her right eye so that she had to brush it back. Well, the chin was pointed, but at least it wasn't sharp. She faced the mirror again and picked up a brush and started on the long, heavy hair.

In fact Corporal Romanova was a very beautiful girl indeed. Her tall firm body moved particularly well. She had been a year in the ballet school in Leningrad andhad abandoned dancing as a career only when she grew aninch over the prescribed limit of five feet. The school hadtaught her to hold herself well and walk well. And she looked wonderfully healthy, thanks to her passion for figure-skating, which she practiced all through the year at the Dynamo ice-stadium and which had already earned her a place on the first Dynamo women's team. Her arms were faultless. Her muscles were so hardened with exercise that it had lost the smooth downward feminine sweep (женская округлость), and now, round at the back and flat and hard at the sides (по бокам), it jutted (выдаваться) like a man's.