‘So, how about another round? You are not tired?’ said Korsunsky, slightly out of breath.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Where shall I take you?’
‘Madame Karenina is here, I believe … take me to her.’
‘Wherever you command.’
Slowing his step now, Korsunsky waltzed directly over to the crowd in the left corner of the ballroom, repeating ‘Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames,’ and after navigating through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbons without catching on a single feather, he spun his partner round sharply, exposing her slender legs in their lacy stockings, and causing her train to spread out like a fan and cover Krivin’s knees. Korsunsky bowed, straightened out his shirt-front, and proffered his arm in order to escort her to Anna Arkadyevna. Blushing deeply, Kitty removed her train from Krivin’s lap and looked round for Anna, her head spinning a little. Anna was standing talking, surrounded by ladies and men. She was not in lilac, which Kitty had so set her heart on, but in a low-cut black velvet dress, revealing her curvaceous shoulders and bosom like old chiselled ivory, rounded arms, and tiny slender hands. The entire dress was trimmed with Venetian lace. On her head, in her black hair, which was not augmented by any extension, was a small garland of pansies, and there was another on the black ribbon of her sash, between pieces of white lace. Her hair arrangement was inconspicuous. Only those obstinate little locks of curly hair constantly escaping at the nape of her neck and on her temples were conspicuous, and they enhanced her beauty. There was a string of pearls around her strong, chiselled neck.
Kitty had seen Anna every day, was in love with her, and had pictured her definitely in lilac. But now that she had seen her in black, she felt she had not understood the full extent of her charm. She now saw her in a completely new and unexpected light. She realized now that Anna could not have worn lilac, and that her charm consisted precisely in the fact that she always stood out from what she wore, that what she wore could never be noticeable on her. The black dress with its sumptuous lace was indeed not noticeable on her; it was just a frame, and all that was visible was her simple, natural, elegant, and yet also light-hearted and vivacious self.
She was standing holding herself extremely straight as always and, when Kitty went over to that cluster of people, talking to the host with her head turned slightly towards him.
‘No, I will not cast the first stone,’* she was replying to him about something, ‘although I do not understand it,’ she continued, shrugging her shoulders, and then she immediately turned to Kitty with an affectionate, protective smile. Running a swift female eye over her dress, she made a barely perceptible gesture with her head, but which Kitty understood as approval of her dress and her beauty. ‘You even come into the ballroom dancing,’ she added.
‘This is one of my most faithful assistants,’ said Korsunsky, bowing to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen. ‘The princess is helping to make the ball jolly and beautiful. Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz,’ he said, bowing low.
‘So you know each other?’ asked their host.
‘Whom do we not know? My wife and I are like white wolves; everyone knows us,’ Korsunsky answered. ‘A waltz, Anna Arkadyevna.’
‘I don’t dance when it is possible not to,’ she said.
‘But tonight it’s impossible,’ replied Korsunsky.
Vronsky approached at that moment.
‘Well, if it is impossible not to dance tonight, come along then,’ she said, not acknowledging Vronsky’s bow and quickly placing her hand on Korsunsky’s shoulder.
‘Why is she cross with him?’ thought Kitty, noticing that Anna had deliberately not responded to Vronsky’s bow. Vronsky came up to Kitty to remind her of the first quadrille and express his regret that he had not had the pleasure of seeing her all this time. Kitty looked admiringly at Anna waltzing as she listened to him. She was expecting him to invite her for the waltz, but he did not, and she glanced at him in surprise. He blushed and hurriedly invited her to waltz, but barely had he put his arm around her slender waist and taken the first step when the music abruptly stopped. Kitty looked at his face, which was such a short distance from hers, and years later that look full of love which she gave him, and which he did not reciprocate, would still tear at her heart with an agonizing sense of shame.
‘Pardon, pardon! The waltz, the waltz!’ Korsunsky shouted out from the other end of the ballroom, and, taking hold of the first available young lady, he started dancing himself.
23
VRONSKY and Kitty danced several waltzes together. After the waltzing had finished, Kitty went over to her mother, and she had barely managed to say a few words to Countess Nordston before Vronsky arrived to collect her for the first quadrille. Nothing significant was said during the quadrille; they had a desultory conversation, ranging from the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly as endearing forty-year-old children, to the projected public theatre,* and only once did the conversation touch a raw nerve with her, when he asked whether Levin was there, and added that he had liked him very much. But Kitty had not expected more from the quadrille. She was waiting for the mazurka with her heart in her mouth. She thought that everything would be decided during the mazurka. She was not perturbed that he had not asked her for the mazurka during the quadrille. She was sure she would dance the mazurka with him, as she had at previous balls, and had turned down five invitations for it, saying she was already engaged. Up until the last quadrille, the whole ball was a magical reverie of joyous colours, sounds, and movements for Kitty. She only stopped dancing when she felt too tired and asked for a rest. But as she danced the last quadrille with one of the dull youths she was unable to refuse, she happened to come face to face with Vronsky and Anna. She had not encountered Anna since her arrival, and she now once again saw her in a completely new and unexpected light. She recognized in her a quality with which she was so familiar herself, of exhilaration with one’s success. She saw that Anna was drunk on the wine of the admiration she was inspiring. She knew that feeling, knew its tell-tale signs, and she saw them in Anna—she saw the dazzling sparkle shimmering in her eyes, the smile of happiness and excitement involuntarily curving her lips, and the precise grace, assurance, and lightness of her movements.
‘Who is it?’ she wondered. ‘Everyone or just one person?’ While she was failing to help the hapless youth with whom she was dancing keep up the conversation, the thread of which he had dropped and could not retrieve, and outwardly following the commands that Korsunsky was barking out merrily, which one minute had everyone forming a grand rond and the next a chaîne, she was observing, and her heart constricted more and more. ‘No, it is not the admiration of the crowd intoxicating her, but the adoration of one person. And that one person? Can it really be him?’ Every time he spoke to Anna, a joyous sparkle twinkled in her eyes, and a radiant smile curved her rosy lips. It was as if she was making a conscious effort not to show these signs of joy, but they appeared on her face by themselves. ‘But what about him?’ Kitty looked at him and was horrified. Everything Kitty saw so clearly depicted in the mirror of Anna’s face was reflected in his. What had happened to his perennially calm, steady manner and blithely calm expression? No, every time he spoke to her now, he bent his head slightly, as if wanting to throw himself down before her, and his look expressed pure submission and fear. ‘I do not want to hurt you,’ his glance seemed to say each time, ‘but I want to save myself, and do not know how.’ On his face was an expression she had never seen before.