Anna Karenina

Kitty had seen Anna every day, was in love with her, and had imagined her inevitably in lilac. But now, seeing her in black, she felt that she had never understood all her loveliness. She saw her now in a completely new and, for her, unexpected way. Now she understood that Anna could not have been in lilac, that her loveliness consisted precisely in always standing out from what she wore, that what she wore was never seen on her. And the black dress with luxurious lace was not seen on her; it was just a frame, and only she was seen - simple, natural, graceful, and at the same time gay and animated.

She stood, as always, holding herself extremely erect, and, when Kitty approached this group, was talking with the host, her head turned slightly towards him.

‘No, I won’t cast a stone,’³³ she replied to something, ‘though I don’t understand it,’ she went on, shrugging her shoulders, and with a tender, protective smile turned at once to Kitty. After a fleeting feminine glance over her dress, she made a barely noticeable but, for Kitty, understandable movement of her head, approving of her dress and beauty. ‘You even come into the ballroom dancing,’ she added.

‘This is one of my most faithful helpers,’ said Korsunsky, bowing to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen. ‘The princess helps to make a ball gay and beautiful. Anna Arkadyevna, a turn of the waltz?’ he said, inclining.

‘So you’re acquainted?’ asked the host.

‘With whom are we not acquainted? My wife and I are like white wolves, everybody knows us,’ replied Korsunsky. ‘A turn of the waltz, Anna Arkadyevna?’

‘I don’t dance when I can help it,’ she said.

‘But tonight you can’t,’ replied Korsunsky.

Just then Vronsky approached.

‘Well, if I can’t help dancing tonight, let’s go then,’ she said, ignoring Vronsky’s bow, and she quickly raised her hand to Korsunsky’s shoulder.

‘Why is she displeased with him?’ thought Kitty, noticing that Anna had deliberately not responded to Vronsky’s bow. Vronsky approached Kitty, reminding her about the first quadrille and regretting that until then he had not had the pleasure of seeing her. While she listened to him, Kitty gazed admiringly at Anna waltzing. She expected him to invite her for a waltz, but he did not, and she glanced at him in surprise. He blushed and hastened to invite her to waltz, but he had only just put his arm around her slender waist and taken the first step when the music suddenly stopped. Kitty looked into his face, which was such a short distance from hers, and long afterwards, for several years, that look, so full of love, which she gave him then, and to which he did not respond, cut her heart with tormenting shame.

‘Pardon, pardon! A waltz, a waltz!’ Korsunsky cried out from the other side of the ballroom and, snatching up the first girl he met, began to dance.

XXIII

Vronsky and Kitty took several turns of the waltz. After the waltz, Kitty went over to her mother and had barely managed to say a few words to Countess Nordston when Vronsky came to fetch her for the first quadrille. Nothing important was said during the quadrille, there were snatches of conversation, now about the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly as sweet forty-year-old children, now about a future public theatre,³⁴ and only once did the conversation touch her to the quick, when he asked her whether Levin was there and added that he liked him very much. But Kitty expected no more from the quadrille. She waited with fainting heart for the mazurka. She thought that during the mazurka everything would be decided. That he had not invited her for the mazurka during the quadrille did not trouble her. She was sure that she would dance the mazurka with him, as at previous balls, and declined five other invitations, saying she was already engaged. The whole ball up to the final quadrille was for Kitty a magic dream of joyful colours, sounds and movements. She left off dancing only when she felt too tired and asked for a rest. But, dancing the final quadrille with one of those boring young men whom it was impossible to refuse, she found herself vis-à-vis Vronsky and Anna. She had not come close to Anna since her arrival, and here suddenly saw her again in a completely new and unexpected way. She saw in her a streak of the elation of success, which she knew so well herself. She could see that Anna was drunk with the wine of the rapture she inspired. She knew that feeling, knew the signs of it, and she saw them in Anna - saw the tremulous, flashing light in her eyes, the smile of happiness and excitement that involuntarily curved her lips, and the precise gracefulness, assurance and lightness of her movements.