Anna smiled, and her smile passed over to him. She lapsed into thought, and he too would turn serious. Some supernatural force drew Kitty’s eyes to Anna’s face. She was enchanting in her simple black dress, enchanting were her full arms with the bracelets on them, enchanting her firm neck with its string of pearls, enchanting her curly hair in disarray, enchanting the graceful, light movements of her small feet and hands, enchanting that beautiful face in its animation; but there was something terrible and cruel in her enchantment.
Kitty admired her even more than before, and suffered more and more. She felt crushed, and her face showed it. When Vronsky saw her, meeting her during the mazurka, he did not recognize her at first - she was so changed.
‘A wonderful ball!’ he said to her, so as to say something.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure just invented by Korsunsky, Anna came out to the middle of the circle, took two partners and called another lady and Kitty to her. Kitty looked fearfully at her as she walked up. Anna, her eyes narrowed, looked at her and smiled, pressing her hand. But noticing that Kitty’s face responded to her smile only with an expression of despair and surprise, she turned away from her and began talking gaily with the other lady.
‘Yes, there’s something alien, demonic and enchanting in her,’ Kitty said to herself.
Anna did not want to stay for supper, but the host began to insist.
‘Come, Anna Arkadyevna,’ said Korsunsky, tucking her bare arm under the sleeve of his tailcoat. ‘What an idea I have for a cotillion!
And he moved on a little, trying to draw her with him. The host smiled approvingly.
‘No, I won’t stay,’ Anna replied, smiling; but despite her smile, both Korsunsky and the host understood by the resolute tone of her reply that she would not stay.
‘No, as it is I’ve danced more in Moscow at your one ball than all winter in Petersburg,’ Anna said, glancing at Vronsky, who was standing near her. ‘I must rest before the trip.’
‘So you’re set on going tomorrow?’ asked Vronsky.
‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Anna, as if surprised at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible tremulous light in her eyes and smile burned him as she said it.
Anna Arkadyevna did not stay for supper but left.
XXIV
