ANNA KARENINA (Collector's Edition) - Leo Tolstoy

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she rose and, stepping firmly and lightly, went out to fetch her album. The flight of stairs to her room went up from a landing of the well-heated front staircase. As she was coming out of the drawing-room there was a ring at the door.

      ‘Who can it be?’ asked Dolly.

      ‘It is too early to fetch me, and late for anyone else,’ said Kitty.

      ‘Papers from the office for me, I expect,’ said Oblonsky.

      A footman ran up to announce the new arrival, who stood at the foot of the stairs under a lamp. Anna looked down from the landing where she stood and at once recognized Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure mixed with fear suddenly stirred in her heart.

      He stood in his overcoat, feeling for something in his pockets. When Anna was halfway up the top flight, he lifted his eyes and saw her, and a look of something like embarrassment and fear came into his face. She bowed slightly and went on. She heard Oblonsky’s loud voice downstairs asking him to come in, and Vronsky’s low, soft voice refusing.

      When Anna returned with her album he had already gone, and Oblonsky was saying that Vronsky had called to inquire about a dinner they were giving next day to a celebrity who was visiting Moscow, but that he could not be induced to come in. ‘He seemed so queer,’ added Oblonsky.

      Kitty blushed. She thought that she alone understood why he had come to the house and why he would not come in. ‘He has been to our house,’ she thought, ‘and not finding me in he guessed that I was here. And he would not come in because Anna is here, and he thought it too late.’

      They all glanced at one another and said nothing but began examining Anna’s album.

      There was nothing extraordinary or strange in the fact that a man had called at half-past nine at a friend’s house to ask about a dinner they were planning and that he would not come in; but it seemed strange to all of them. To Anna in particular it seemed strange and not right.

      Chapter 22

      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

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