________________________________________________
_ Vronsky 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 asker 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
heard 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 colcors, 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 coud not refuse, she chanced to be
vis-a-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 surp4rising. 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 uncionsciously 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 chaine, 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
ofthemselves. "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 pend
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 have never seen before.
They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the most
trivial conversatin, 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 any one
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 curshed. 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 coplete. 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 had done wrong.
Anna smiles, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew
thoughtful, and he bacame 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 nect 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
fuffering. 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 ball1" 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 had. 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
cotillon! Un bijou!"
And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him.
Their hose smiled approvingly.
"No, I am not going to stay," answered Anna, smiling, but in
spite ofher 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 mor at your ball in Moscow that
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 nto stay to supper, but went home. _
Read next: Part One: Chapter 24
Read previous: Part One: Chapter 22
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