Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 22
Chapter 22
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
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