Anna Karenina

he ball was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked up the
great staircase, flooded with light, and lined with flowers and footmen
in powder and red coats. From the rooms came a constant, steady hum, as
from a hive, and the rustle of movement; and while on the landing
between trees they gave last touches to their hair and dresses before
the mirror, they heard from the ballroom the careful, distinct notes of
the fiddles of the orchestra beginning the first waltz. A little old
man in civilian dress, arranging his gray curls before another mirror,
and diffusing an odor of scent, stumbled against them on the stairs,
and stood aside, evidently admiring Kitty, whom he did not know. A
beardless youth, one of those society youths whom the old Prince
Shtcherbatsky called “young bucks,” in an exceedingly open waistcoat,
straightening his white tie as he went, bowed to them, and after
running by, came back to ask Kitty for a quadrille. As the first
quadrille had already been given to Vronsky, she had to promise this
youth the second. An officer, buttoning his glove, stood aside in the
doorway, and stroking his mustache, admired rosy Kitty.

Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for the ball
had cost Kitty great trouble and consideration, at this moment she
walked into the ballroom in her elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip
as easily and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all the
minute details of her attire, had not cost her or her family a moment’s
attention, as though she had been born in that tulle and lace, with her
hair done up high on her head, and a rose and two leaves on the top of
it.

When, just before entering the ballroom, the princess, her mother,
tried to turn right side out of the ribbon of her sash, Kitty had drawn
back a little. She felt that everything must be right of itself, and
graceful, and nothing could need setting straight.

It was one of Kitty’s best days. Her dress was not uncomfortable
anywhere; her lace berthe did not droop anywhere; her rosettes were not
crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers with high, hollowed-out heels
did not pinch, but gladdened her feet; and the thick rolls of fair
chignon kept up on her head as if they were her own hair. All the three
buttons buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her
hand without concealing its lines. The black velvet of her locket
nestled with special softness round her neck. That velvet was
delicious; at home, looking at her neck in the looking-glass, Kitty had
felt that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might be a
doubt, but the velvet was delicious. Kitty smiled here too, at the
ball, when she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare shoulders and arms
gave Kitty a sense of chill marble, a feeling she particularly liked.
Her eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips could not keep from smiling from
the consciousness of her own attractiveness. She had scarcely entered
the ballroom and reached the throng of ladies, all tulle, ribbons,
lace, and flowers, waiting to be asked to dance—Kitty was never one of
that throng—when she was asked for a waltz, and asked by the best
partner, the first star in the hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned
director of dances, a married man, handsome and well-built, Yegorushka
Korsunsky. He had only just left the Countess Bonina, with whom he had
danced the first half of the waltz, and, scanning his kingdom—that is
to say, a few couples who had started dancing—he caught sight of Kitty,
entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is
confined to directors of balls. Without even asking her if she cared to
dance, he put out his arm to encircle her slender waist. She looked
round for someone to give her fan to, and their hostess, smiling to
her, took it.

“How nice you’ve come in good time,” he said to her, embracing her
waist; “such a bad habit to be late.” Bending her left hand, she laid
it on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink slippers began
swiftly, lightly, and rhythmically moving over the slippery floor in
time to the music.

“It’s a rest to waltz with you,” he said to her, as they fell into the
first slow steps of the waltz. “It’s exquisite—such lightness,
precision.” He said to her the same thing he said to almost all his
partners whom he knew well.

She smiled at his praise, and continued to look about the room over his
shoulder. She was not like a girl at her first ball, for whom all faces
in the ballroom melt into one vision of fairyland. And she was not a
girl who had gone the stale round of balls till every face in the
ballroom was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the middle stage
between these two; she was excited, and at the same time she had
sufficient self-possession to be able to observe. In the left corner of
the ballroom she saw the cream of society gathered together.
There—incredibly naked—was the beauty Lidi, Korsunsky’s wife; there was
the lady of the house; there shone the bald head of Krivin, always to
be found where the best people were. In that direction gazed the young
men, not venturing to approach. There, too, she descried Stiva, and
there she saw the exquisite figure and head of Anna in a black velvet
gown. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she
refused Levin. With her long-sighted eyes, she knew him at once, and
was even aware that he was looking at her.

“Another turn, eh? You’re not tired?” said Korsunsky, a little out of
breath.

“No, thank you!”

“Where shall I take you?”

“Madame Karenina’s here, I think ... take me to her.”

“Wherever you command.”

And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight towards the
group in the left corner, continually saying, “Pardon, mesdames,
pardon, pardon, mesdames”; and steering his course through the sea of
lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging a feather, he turned his
partner sharply round, so that her slim ankles, in light transparent
stockings, were exposed to view, and her train floated out in fan shape
and covered Krivin’s knees. Korsunsky bowed, set straight his open
shirt front, and gave her his arm to conduct her to Anna Arkadyevna.
Kitty, flushed, took her train from Krivin’s knees, and, a little
giddy, looked round, seeking Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had
so urgently wished, but in a black, low-cut, velvet gown, showing her
full throat and shoulders, that looked as though carved in old ivory,
and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender wrists. The whole gown was
trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her black hair—her
own, with no false additions—was a little wreath of pansies, and a
bouquet of the same in the black ribbon of her sash among white lace.
Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was the little
wilful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about
her neck and temples. Round her well-cut, strong neck was a thread of
pearls.

Kitty had been seeing Anna every day; she adored her, and had pictured
her invariably in lilac. But now seeing her in black, she felt that she
had not fully seen her charm. She saw her now as someone quite new and
surprising to her. Now she understood that Anna could not have been in
lilac, and that her charm was just that she always stood out against
her attire, that her dress could never be noticeable on her. And her
black dress, with its sumptuous lace, was not noticeable on her; it was
only the frame, and all that was seen was she—simple, natural, elegant,
and at the same time gay and eager.

She was standing holding herself, as always, very erect, and when Kitty
drew near the group she was speaking to the master of the house, her
head slightly turned towards him.

“No, I don’t throw stones,” she was saying, in answer to something,
“though I can’t understand it,” she went on, shrugging her shoulders,
and she turned at once with a soft smile of protection towards Kitty.
With a flying, feminine glance she scanned her attire, and made a
movement of her head, hardly perceptible, but understood by Kitty,
signifying approval of her dress and her looks. “You came into the room
dancing,” she added.

“This is one of my most faithful supporters,” said Korsunsky, bowing to
Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen. “The princess helps to make
balls happy and successful. Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz?” he said, bending
down to her.

“Why, have you met?” inquired their host.

“Is there anyone we have not met? My wife and I are like white
wolves—everyone knows us,” answered Korsunsky. “A waltz, Anna
Arkadyevna?”

“I don’t dance when it’s possible not to dance,” she said.

“But tonight it’s impossible,” answered Korsunsky.

At that instant Vronsky came up.

“Well, since it’s impossible tonight, let us start,” she said, not
noticing Vronsky’s bow, and she hastily put her hand on Korsunsky’s
shoulder.

“What is she vexed with him about?” thought Kitty, discerning that Anna
had intentionally not responded to Vronsky’s bow. Vronsky went up to
Kitty reminding her of the first quadrille, and expressing his regret
that he had not seen her all this time. Kitty gazed in admiration at
Anna waltzing, and listened to him. She expected him to ask her for a
waltz, but he did not, and she glanced wonderingly at him. He flushed
slightly, and hurriedly asked her to waltz, but he had only just put
his arm round her waist and taken the first step when the music
suddenly stopped. Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her
own, and long afterwards—for several years after—that look, full of
love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an agony
of shame.

“Pardon! pardon! Waltz! waltz!” shouted Korsunsky from the other side
of the room, and seizing the first young lady he came across he began
dancing himself.