Anna Karenina полностью

Kitty was having one of her happy days. Her dress was not tight anywhere, the lace bertha stayed in place, the rosettes did not get crumpled or come off; the pink shoes with high, curved heels did not pinch, but delighted her little feet. The thick braids of blond hair held to her little head like her own. All three buttons on her long gloves, which fitted but did not change the shape of her arms, fastened without coming off. The black velvet ribbon of her locket encircled her neck with particular tenderness. This velvet ribbon was enchanting, and at home, as she looked at her neck in the mirror, she felt it could almost speak. All the rest might be doubted, but the ribbon was enchanting. Kitty also smiled here at the ball as she glanced at it in the mirror. In her bare shoulders and arms she felt a cold, marble-like quality that she especially liked. Her eyes shone, and her red lips could not help smiling from the sense of her own attractiveness. She had no sooner entered the ballroom and reached the gauzy, ribbony, lacy, colourful crowd of ladies waiting to be invited to dance (Kitty never stayed long in that crowd), than she was invited for a waltz, and invited by the best partner, the foremost partner of the ball hierarchy, the celebrated dirigeur^e of balls, the master of ceremonies, a trim, handsome, married man, Yegorushka Korsunsky. Having only just abandoned Countess Banin, with whom he had danced the first round of the waltz, and surveying his domain, that is, the few couples who had started dancing, he saw Kitty come in, hastened to her with that special loose amble proper only to the dirigeurs of balls, bowed and, without even asking her consent, held out his arm to put it around her slender waist. She turned, looking for someone to hold her fan, and the hostess, smiling, took it.

‘How nice that you came on time,’ he said to her, putting his arm around her waist. ‘What is this fashion for being late!’

Bending her left arm, she placed her hand on his shoulder, and her small feet in their pink shoes began to move quickly, lightly and rhythmically across the slippery parquet in time with the music.

‘It’s restful waltzing with you,’ he said to her, falling in with the first, not yet quick, steps of the waltz. ‘Lovely, such lightness, précision.’ He said to her what he said to almost all his good acquaintances.

She smiled at his compliment and went on examining the ballroom over his shoulder. She was not a new debutante, for whom all the faces at a ball blend into one magical impression; nor was she a girl dragged to every ball, for whom all the faces are so familiar that it is boring; she was in between the two - she was excited, but at the same time self-possessed enough to be able to watch. In the left-hand corner of the room she saw grouped the flower of society. There was the impossibly bared, beautiful Lydie, Korsunsky’s wife, there was the hostess, there gleamed the bald head of Krivin, always to be found with the flower of society. Young men, not daring to approach, gazed in that direction; and there her eyes picked out Stiva and then noticed the lovely figure and head of Anna, who was in a black velvet dress. And there he was. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she refused Levin. With her far-sighted eyes she recognized him at once, and even noticed that he was looking at her.

‘What now, another turn? You’re not tired?’ said Korsunsky, slightly out of breath.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Where shall I take you?’

‘Mme Karenina is here, I think ... take me to her.’

‘Wherever you choose.’

And Korsunsky waltzed on, measuring his step, straight towards the crowd in the left-hand corner of the ballroom, repeating: ‘Pardon, mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames,’ and, manoeuvring through that sea of lace, tulle and ribbons without snagging one little feather, he twirled his partner so sharply that her slender, lace-stockinged legs were revealed, and her train swept up fan-like, covering Krivin’s knees. Korsunsky bowed, straightened his broad shirtfront, and offered her his arm to take her to Anna Arkadyevna. Kitty, all flushed, removed her train from Krivin’s knees and, slightly dizzy, looked around, searching for Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had absolutely wanted, but in a low-cut black velvet dress, which revealed her full shoulders and bosom, as if shaped from old ivory, and her rounded arms with their very small, slender hands. The dress was all trimmed with Venetian guipure lace. On her head, in her black hair, her own without admixture, was a small garland of pansies, and there was another on her black ribbon sash among the white lace. Her coiffure was inconspicuous. Conspicuous were only those wilful little ringlets of curly hair that adorned her, always coming out on her nape and temples. Around her firm, shapely neck was a string of pearls.