Читать книгу Anna Karenina (Maude Translation, Unabridged and Annotated) - Leo Tolstoy - Страница 29

THE ball had only just begun when Kitty and her mother ascended the broad staircase which was deluged with light, decorated with flowering plants, and occupied by powdered footmen in red liveries. From the ballroom as from a beehive came the regular sound of movement, and while they were arranging their hair and dresses before a mirror on the landing between the plants, they heard the accurate measured sound of the orchestra violins just beginning the first waltz. A little old man, who had smoothed the grey hair on his temples before another mirror and who smelt strongly of scent, happened to jostle them on the stairs, and stepped aside in evident admiration of Kitty, whom he did not know. A beardless youth, one of those whom the old Prince Shcherbatsky called puppies, with a very low-cut waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he went along, bowed to them and ran past but returned to ask Kitty for a quadrille. She had given the first quadrille to Vronsky and had to give the second to this youth. An officer, buttoning his glove, stood aside at the doorway to make room for them, and smoothing his moustache looked with evident pleasure at the rosy Kitty.

Although Kitty’s gown and coiffure and all her other adornments had given her much trouble and thought, she now entered the ballroom in her complicated dress of white net over a pink slip, as easily and simply as if these bows and laces and all the details of her toilet had not cost her or her people a moment’s attention, as if she had been born in this net and lace and with that high coiffure and the rose and its two leaves on the top.

When, just before entering the ballroom, her mother wished to put straight a twisted end of her sash, Kitty drew slightly back: she felt that everything on her must be naturally right and graceful and that there was no need to adjust anything.

It was one of Kitty’s happy days. Her dress did not feel tight anywhere, the lace round her bodice did not slip, the bows did not crumple or come off, the pink shoes with their high curved heels did not pinch but seemed to make her feet lighter. The thick rolls of fair hair kept up as if they had grown naturally so on the little head. All three buttons on each of her long gloves, which fitted without changing the shape of her hand, fastened without coming off. The black velvet ribbon of her locket clasped her neck with unusual softness. That ribbon was charming, and when Kitty had looked at her neck in the glass at home, she felt that that ribbon was eloquent. There might be some possible doubt about anything else, but that ribbon was charming. Kitty smiled, here at the ball, when she caught sight of it again in the mirror. Her bare shoulders and arms gave her a sensation as of cold marble, a feeling she liked very much. Her eyes shone and she could not keep her rosy lips from smiling at the consciousness of her attractive appearance, Before she had reached the light-coloured crowd of women in tulle, ribbons, and lace, who were waiting for partners (Kitty never long formed one of the crowd), she was already asked for the waltz and asked by the best dancer, the leader of the dancing hierarchy, the famous dirigeur and Master of the Ceremonies, a handsome stately married man, George Korsunsky. He had just left the Countess Bonin, with whom he had danced the first round of the waltz, and looking round his domain — that is to say, a few couples who had begun to dance — he noticed Kitty just coming in. He approached her with that peculiar free and easy amble natural only to Masters of Ceremonies, bowed, and, without even asking her consent, put his arm round her slim waist. She looked about for some one to hold her fan and the mistress of the house took it from her with a smile.

‘How fine that you have come in good time,’ he said with his arm round her waist. ‘It’s wrong of people to come so late.’

Bending her left arm she put her hand on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink shoes began moving quickly, lightly, and rhythmically in time with the music, over the smooth parquet floor.

‘It is a rest to waltz with you,’ he said as he took the first slow steps of the dance. ‘What lightness and precision! it’s delightful!’ he remarked, saying to her what he said to almost all the dancing partners whom he really liked.

She smiled at his praise, and over his shoulder continued to survey the ballroom. She was not a girl just come out, for whom all faces at a ball blend into one fairy-like vision; nor was she a girl who had been dragged from ball to ball till all the faces were familiar to dullness. She was between those two extremes, and though elated was able to control herself sufficiently to be observant. She saw that the élite of the company were grouped in the left-hand corner of the room. There was the beauty Lida, Korsunsky’s wife, in an impossibly low dress, and the hostess, and there shone the bald head of Krivin who was always where the élite were; youths who had not the courage to approach gazed in that direction, and there Kitty’s eyes found Stephen, and then the lovely head and beautiful figure of Anna, in a black velvet dress. And he was there. Kitty had not seen him since the day she had refused Levin. With her far-sighted eyes she recognized him at once and even noticed that he was looking at her.

‘Shall we have another turn? You are not tired?’ asked Korsunsky who was a little out of breath.

‘No more turns, thank you.’

‘Where may I take you?’

‘I believe Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is here, take me to her.’

‘Wherever you please.’

And Korsunsky waltzed toward the left of the room, gradually diminishing his step and repeating ‘Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames,’ as he steered through that sea of lace, tulle and ribbons without touching as much as a feather, and then turned his partner so suddenly that her delicate ankles in the openwork stockings appeared as her train spread out like a fan and covered Krivin’s knees. Korsunsky bowed, straightened his broad shirt front, and offered Kitty his arm to conduct her to Anna. Kitty flushed, and, a little giddy, took her train off Krivin’s knees and looked round for Anna.

Anna was not in lilac, the colour Kitty was so sure she ought to have worn, but in a low-necked black velvet dress which exposed her full shoulder and bosom that seemed carved out of old ivory, and her rounded arms with the very small hands. Her dress was richly trimmed with Venetian lace. In her black hair, all her own, she wore a little garland of pansies, and in her girdle, among the lace, a bunch of the same flowers. Her coiffure was very unobtrusive. The only noticeable things about it were the wilful ringlets that always escaped at her temples and on the nape of her neck and added to her beauty. Round her finely chiselled neck she wore a string of pearls.

Kitty had been seeing Anna every day and was in love with her, and had always imagined her in lilac, but seeing her in black she felt that she had never before realized her full charm. She now saw her in a new and quite unexpected light. She now realized that Anna could not have worn lilac, and that her charm lay precisely in the fact that her personality always stood out from her dress, that her dress was never conspicuous on her. And her black velvet with rich lace was not at all conspicuous, but served only as a frame; she alone was noticeable — simple, natural, elegant and at the same time merry and animated. She was standing among that group, very erect as usual, and was talking to the master of the house with her head slightly turned toward him, when Kitty approached.

‘No, I am not going to throw the first stone,’ she was saying in reply to some question, adding, with a shrug of her shoulders, ‘although I cannot understand it’; and at once she turned to Kitty with a tender protecting smile. She surveyed Kitty’s dress with a rapid feminine glance, and with a movement of her head, scarcely perceptible but understood by Kitty, she signified her approval of Kitty’s dress and beauty.

‘You even come into the room dancing,’ she said.

‘She is one of my most faithful helpers,’ said Korsunsky, turning to Anna whom he had not yet seen. ‘The Princess helps to make a ball gay and beautiful. Anna Arkadyevna, shall we have a turn?’ he added, stooping toward her.

‘Oh, you know one another?’ asked the host.

‘Whom do we not know? My wife and I are like white wolves, every one knows us,’ answered Korsunsky. ‘Anna Arkadyevna, just one turn?’

‘I don’t dance if it is possible not to,’ she said.

‘But tonight it is not possible,’ he rejoined.

At that moment Vronsky approached.

‘Well, if it is impossible not to dance tonight, let us dance,’ she said taking no notice of Vronsky’s bow and quickly putting her hand on Korsunsky’s shoulder.

‘Why is she displeased with him?’ thought Kitty, noticing that Anna had intentionally taken no notice of Vronsky’s bow. He came up to Kitty, reminding her of the first quadrille and regretting that he had not seen her for such a long time. Kitty, while gazing with admiration at Anna waltzing, listened to him, expecting him to ask her to waltz, but he did not do so and she glanced at him with surprise. He blushed and hurriedly asked her to dance, but scarcely had he put his arm round her slim waist and taken one step when the music stopped. Kitty looked into his face which was so near her own, and long after — for years after — that look so full of love which she then gave him, and which met with no response from him, cut her to the heart with tormenting shame.

‘Pardon, pardon, a waltz — a waltz,’ shouted Korsunsky from the other end of the room, and seizing the first girl within reach he himself began dancing.