War and Peace
“If you please, Miss! allow me,” said the maid, who on her knees was
pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her
mouth to the other with her tongue.
“Say what you like,” exclaimed Sónya, in a despairing voice as she
looked at Natásha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.”
Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress
was too long.
“Really, madam, it is not at all too long,” said Mávra, crawling on
her knees after her young lady.
“Well, if it’s too long we’ll tack it up... we’ll tack it up
in one minute,” said the resolute Dunyásha taking a needle that was
stuck on the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor,
set to work once more.
At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap
and velvet gown.
“Oo-oo, my beauty!” exclaimed the count, “she looks better than
any of you!”
He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to
be rumpled.
“Mamma, your cap, more to this side,” said Natásha. “I’ll
arrange it,” and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking
up her skirt could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn
off.
“Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!”
“Never mind, I’ll run it up, it won’t show,” said Dunyásha.
“What a beauty—a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the
door. “And Sónya! They are lovely!”
At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.
But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.
Perónskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she
had gone through the same process as the Rostóvs, but with less
flurry—for to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was
washed, perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed
behind her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing
room in her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old
lady’s maid was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostóvs’
servants had been.
She praised the Rostóvs’ toilets. They praised her taste and toilet,
and at eleven o’clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they
settled themselves in their carriages and drove off.
CHAPTER XV
Natásha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once
had time to think of what lay before her.
In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she
for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at
the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances,
the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The
prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true,
so out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the
carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping
over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her
fur cloak, and, beside Sónya and in front of her mother, mounted the
brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she
remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic
air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,
fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing
clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed
at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her
ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying
with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that
became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,
also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the
landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with
diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.
Natásha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection
from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession.
On entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and
greetings deafened Natásha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still
more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door
for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,
“Charmé de vous voir,” * greeted the Rostóvs and Perónskaya in
the same manner.
* “Delighted to see you.”
The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her
black hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess’ eye
involuntarily rested longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her
and gave her alone a special smile in addition to her usual smile as
hostess. Looking at her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable
days of her own girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed
Natásha with his eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.
“Charming!” said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.
In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting
the Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows
of that crowd. Natásha heard and felt that several people were asking
about her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked
her, and this observation helped to calm her.
“There are some like ourselves and some worse,” she thought.
Perónskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people
at the ball.
“That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,”
she said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly
hair, who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.
“Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova,”
said Perónskaya, indicating Hélène who had just entered. “How
lovely! She is quite equal to Márya Antónovna. See how the men, young
and old, pay court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince
—— is quite mad about her. But see, those two, though not
good-looking, are even more run after.”
She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain
daughter.
“She is a splendid match, a millionairess,” said Perónskaya. “And
look, here come her suitors.”
“That is Bezúkhova’s brother, Anatole Kurágin,” she said,
indicating a handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them
with head erect, looking at something over the heads of the ladies.
“He’s handsome, isn’t he? I hear they will marry him to that rich
girl. But your cousin, Drubetskóy, is also very attentive to her. They
say she has millions. Oh yes, that’s the French ambassador himself!”
she replied to the countess’ inquiry about Caulaincourt. “Looks as
if he were a king! All the same, the French are charming, very charming.
No one more charming in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the
most beautiful of them all, our Márya Antónovna! And how simply she
is dressed! Lovely! And that stout one in spectacles is the universal
Freemason,” she went on, indicating Pierre. “Put him beside his wife
and he looks a regular buffoon!”
Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd
and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he
were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently
looking for someone.
Natásha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the
buffoon,” as Perónskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for
them, and for her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and
introduce partners to her.
But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark
man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window
talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natásha at once
recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was
Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and
better-looking.
“There’s someone else we know—Bolkónski, do you see, Mamma?”
said Natásha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed a
night with us at Otrádnoe.”
“Oh, you know him?” said Perónskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait
à présent la pluie et le beau temps. * He’s too proud for anything.
Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speránski,
writing some project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies!
There’s one talking to him and he has turned away,” she said,
pointing at him. “I’d give it to him if he treated me as he does
those ladies.”
* “He is all the rage just now.”
CHAPTER XVI
Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then
back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to
the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked
his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left
as if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band
played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that
had been set to it, beginning: “Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts
you ravish quite...” The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the
crowd made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces
hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from
the drawing room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the
hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,
asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete
forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the
detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take
their places for the polonaise.
Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing
room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the
music. The host followed with Márya Antónovna Narýshkina; then
came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Perónskaya
diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners
and were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the
polonaise. Natásha felt that she would be left with her mother and
Sónya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, not having
been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging down,
her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with
bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straight before
her, evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. She was
not concerned about the Emperor or any of those great people whom
Perónskaya was pointing out—she had but one thought: “Is it
possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first to
dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me?
They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as if they
were saying, ‘Ah, she’s not the one I’m after, so it’s not worth
looking at her!’ No, it’s impossible,” she thought. “They must
know how I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would
enjoy dancing with me.”
The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable
time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natásha’s ears.
She wanted to cry. Perónskaya had left them. The count was at the
other end of the room. She and the countess and Sónya were standing by
themselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers,
with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew
with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome
Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at
Natásha as one looks at a wall. Borís passed them twice and each time
turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.
This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natásha—as if there were
nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not
listen to or look at Véra, who was telling her something about her own
green dress.