Anna Karenina

onsky and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After the first
waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time to say a few
words to Countess Nordston when Vronsky came up again for the first
quadrille. During the quadrille nothing of any significance was said:
there was disjointed talk between them of the Korsunskys, husband and
wife, whom he described very amusingly, as delightful children at
forty, and of the future town theater; and only once the conversation
touched her to the quick, when he asked her about Levin, whether he was
here, and added that he liked him so much. But Kitty did not expect
much from the quadrille. She looked forward with a thrill at her heart
to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything must be
decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the
mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance the mazurka
with him as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men,
saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to the last
quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful colors,
sounds, and motions. She only sat down when she felt too tired and
begged for a rest. But as she was dancing the last quadrille with one
of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she chanced to be
vis-à-vis with Vronsky and Anna. She had not been near Anna again
since the beginning of the evening, and now again she saw her suddenly
quite new and surprising. She saw in her the signs of that excitement
of success she knew so well in herself; she saw that she was
intoxicated with the delighted admiration she was exciting. She knew
that feeling and knew its signs, and saw them in Anna; saw the
quivering, flashing light in her eyes, and the smile of happiness and
excitement unconsciously playing on her lips, and the deliberate grace,
precision, and lightness of her movements.

“Who?” she asked herself. “All or one?” And not assisting the harassed
young man she was dancing with in the conversation, the thread of which
he had lost and could not pick up again, she obeyed with external
liveliness the peremptory shouts of Korsunsky starting them all into
the grand rond, and then into the chaîne, and at the same time she
kept watch with a growing pang at her heart. “No, it’s not the
admiration of the crowd has intoxicated her, but the adoration of one.
And that one? can it be he?” Every time he spoke to Anna the joyous
light flashed into her eyes, and the smile of happiness curved her red
lips. She seemed to make an effort to control herself, to try not to
show these signs of delight, but they came out on her face of
themselves. “But what of him?” Kitty looked at him and was filled with
terror. What was pictured so clearly to Kitty in the mirror of Anna’s
face she saw in him. What had become of his always self-possessed
resolute manner, and the carelessly serene expression of his face? Now
every time he turned to her, he bent his head, as though he would have
fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble
submission and dread. “I would not offend you,” his eyes seemed every
time to be saying, “but I want to save myself, and I don’t know how.”
On his face was a look such as Kitty had never seen before.

They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the most trivial
conversation, but to Kitty it seemed that every word they said was
determining their fate and hers. And strange it was that they were
actually talking of how absurd Ivan Ivanovitch was with his French, and
how the Eletsky girl might have made a better match, yet these words
had all the while consequence for them, and they were feeling just as
Kitty did. The whole ball, the whole world, everything seemed lost in
fog in Kitty’s soul. Nothing but the stern discipline of her
bringing-up supported her and forced her to do what was expected of
her, that is, to dance, to answer questions, to talk, even to smile.
But before the mazurka, when they were beginning to rearrange the
chairs and a few couples moved out of the smaller rooms into the big
room, a moment of despair and horror came for Kitty. She had refused
five partners, and now she was not dancing the mazurka. She had not
even a hope of being asked for it, because she was so successful in
society that the idea would never occur to anyone that she had remained
disengaged till now. She would have to tell her mother she felt ill and
go home, but she had not the strength to do this. She felt crushed. She
went to the furthest end of the little drawing-room and sank into a low
chair. Her light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud about her
slender waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly,
was lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan,
and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face. But while she
looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass, and just about
to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached with a
horrible despair.

“But perhaps I am wrong, perhaps it was not so?” And again she recalled
all she had seen.

“Kitty, what is it?” said Countess Nordston, stepping noiselessly over
the carpet towards her. “I don’t understand it.”

Kitty’s lower lip began to quiver; she got up quickly.

“Kitty, you’re not dancing the mazurka?”

“No, no,” said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears.

“He asked her for the mazurka before me,” said Countess Nordston,
knowing Kitty would understand who were “he” and “her.” “She said:
‘Why, aren’t you going to dance it with Princess Shtcherbatskaya?’”

“Oh, I don’t care!” answered Kitty.

No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that she
had just refused the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused him
because she had put her faith in another.

Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the
mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.

Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not to
talk, because Korsunsky was all the time running about directing the
figure. Vronsky and Anna sat almost opposite her. She saw them with her
long-sighted eyes, and saw them, too, close by, when they met in the
figures, and the more she saw of them the more convinced was she that
her unhappiness was complete. She saw that they felt themselves alone
in that crowded room. And on Vronsky’s face, always so firm and
independent, she saw that look that had struck her, of bewilderment and
humble submissiveness, like the expression of an intelligent dog when
it has done wrong.

Anna smiled, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew thoughtful,
and he became serious. Some supernatural force drew Kitty’s eyes to
Anna’s face. She was fascinating in her simple black dress, fascinating
were her round arms with their bracelets, fascinating was her firm neck
with its thread of pearls, fascinating the straying curls of her loose
hair, fascinating the graceful, light movements of her little feet and
hands, fascinating was that lovely face in its eagerness, but there was
something terrible and cruel in her fascination.

Kitty admired her more than ever, and more and more acute was her
suffering. Kitty felt overwhelmed, and her face showed it. When Vronsky
saw her, coming across her in the mazurka, he did not at once recognize
her, she was so changed.

“Delightful ball!” he said to her, for the sake of saying something.

“Yes,” she answered.

In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure, newly
invented by Korsunsky, Anna came forward into the center of the circle,
chose two gentlemen, and summoned a lady and Kitty. Kitty gazed at her
in dismay as she went up. Anna looked at her with drooping eyelids, and
smiled, pressing her hand. But, noticing that Kitty only responded to
her smile by a look of despair and amazement, she turned away from her,
and began gaily talking to the other lady.

“Yes, there is something uncanny, devilish and fascinating in her,”
Kitty said to herself.

Anna did not mean to stay to supper, but the master of the house began
to press her to do so.

“Nonsense, Anna Arkadyevna,” said Korsunsky, drawing her bare arm under
the sleeve of his dress coat, “I’ve such an idea for a cotillion! Un
bijou!”

And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him. Their
host smiled approvingly.

“No, I am not going to stay,” answered Anna, smiling, but in spite of
her smile, both Korsunsky and the master of the house saw from her
resolute tone that she would not stay.

“No; why, as it is, I have danced more at your ball in Moscow than I
have all the winter in Petersburg,” said Anna, looking round at
Vronsky, who stood near her. “I must rest a little before my journey.”

“Are you certainly going tomorrow then?” asked Vronsky.

“Yes, I suppose so,” answered Anna, as it were wondering at the
boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance
of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.

Anna Arkadyevna did not stay to supper, but went home.