Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 23
Chapter 23
VRONSKY and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After the first waltz
Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time to say a few words to
Countess Nordston when Vronsky came up again for the first quadrille. During
the quadrille nothing of any significance was said: there was disjointed talk between
them of the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very amusingly, as
delightful children at forty, and of the future town theater; and only once the conversation
touched her to the quick, when he asked her about Levin, whether he was
here, and added that he liked him so much. But Kitty did not expect much from the
quadrille. She looked forward with a thrill at her heart to the mazurka. She fancied
that in the mazurka everything must be decided. The fact that he did not during the
quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance
the mazurka with him as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men,
saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to the last quadrille was
for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful colors, sounds, and motions. She only
sat down when she felt too tired and begged for a rest. But as she was dancing the
last quadrille with one of the tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she
chanced to be vis-a-vis with Vronsky and Anna. She had not been near Anna again
since the beginning of the evening, and now again she saw her suddenly quite new
and surprising. She saw in her the signs of that excitement of success she knew so
well in herself; she saw that she was intoxicated with the delighted admiration she
was exciting. She knew that feeling and knew its signs, and saw them in Anna; saw
the quivering, flashing light in her eyes, and the smile of happiness and excitement
unconsciously playing on her lips, and the deliberate grace, precision, and lightness
of her movements.
“Who?” she asked herself. “All or one?” And not assisting the harassed young
man she was dancing with in the conversation, the thread of which he had lost and
could not pick up again, she obeyed with external liveliness the peremptory shouts
of Korsunsky starting them all into the grand rond, and then into the châine, and at
the same time she kept watch with a growing pang at her heart. “No, it’s not the
admiration of the crowd has intoxicated her, but the adoration of one. And that one?
can it be he?” Every time he spoke to Anna the joyous light flashed into her eyes, and
the smile of happiness curved her red lips. she seemed to make an effort to control
herself, to try not to show these signs of delight, but they came out on her face of
themselves. “But what of him?” Kitty looked at him and was filled with terror.
What was pictured so clearly to Kitty in the mirror of Anna’s face she saw in him.
What had become of his always self-possessed resolute manner, and the carelessly
serene expression of his face? Now every time he turned to her, he bent his head,
as though he would have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but
humble submission and dread. “I would not offend you,” his eyes seemed every
time to be saying, “but I want to save myself, and I don’t know how.” On his face
was a look such as Kitty had never seen before.
They were speaking of common acquaintances, keeping up the most trivial conversation,
but to Kitty it seemed that every word they said was determining their
fate and hers. And strange it was that they were actually talking of how absurd Ivan
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