Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 79/119

The 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.