‘I took the feather, and could only by a look express my delight and gratitude. I was not only happy and content, I was in a state of bliss, full of goodwill to all; I was no longer myself, but some unearthly being who had no knowledge of evil and was capable only of doing good. I hid away the feather in my glove and stood there, without the strength to walk away from her.
‘ “Look, they are trying to get papa to dance,” she said to me, pointing to the tall, stately figure of her father, a colonel in silver epaulettes, standing in the doorway with the hostess and some other ladies.
‘ “Varenka, come over here,” we heard the hostess, with her diamond ferronnière and Empress Elizaveta shoulders, calling in a loud voice.
‘Varenka went across to the doorway, and I followed.
‘ “Do persuade your father to take a turn with you,
‘Varenka’s father was a very handsome, stately, tall and youthful-looking elderly man. His face had a high colour, he had white, curled moustaches
‘As we approached the doorway the Colonel was making excuses, saying that he had quite forgotten the art of dancing; nevertheless he smiled, reached across with his right hand to draw his sword from its scabbard and handed it to an obliging young man; and putting a suede glove on his right hand – “all according to regulations” as he said with a smile – he took his daughter’s hand and made a quarter turn, waiting for the music to strike up.
‘As soon as the music of the mazurka began, he stamped one foot smartly on the floor and advanced the other, and his tall, bulky figure began, now gently and smoothly, now noisily and energetically with a clicking of soles and of one boot against the other, to move around the ballroom. The graceful figure of Varenka sailed along beside him, imperceptibly shortening or lengthening the steps of her little feet in their white satin shoes. The whole room followed the couple’s every movement. I gazed at them not just with admiration, but with a feeling of rapturous tenderness. I was particularly moved by the sight of his boots, fastened with little straps – good calf-skin boots, not the fashionable pointed sort but old-fashioned boots with square toes and without built-up heels. They were clearly the work of some battalion cobbler. “To bring out his beloved daughter and show her off he doesn’t buy fashionable boots, he puts on his everyday home-made ones,” I thought, and those foursquare toecaps continued to move me. It was obvious that he had once been an excellent dancer, but now he was stout and his legs were not supple enough for all the quick and elegant dance steps he was attempting to execute. All the same, he completed two accomplished circuits of the floor.
‘And when he swiftly parted his feet and brought them together again and, although somewhat heavily, dropped on one knee, and she, smiling as she smoothed down her skirt where he had caught it, described a smooth circle round him, everyone burst into loud applause. Rising again with some effort to his feet, he tenderly and affectionately clasped his daughter’s head between his hands and, kissing her on the forehead, led her across to me, assuming that I was dancing with her. I told him that I was not her escort.
‘ “Well, never mind, you dance this one with her,” he said with a kindly smile as he put his sword back into its scabbard.
‘Just as a single drop poured from a bottle is followed by all the liquid contained inside gushing out in great streams, so my love for Varenka released the entire capacity for love which I had in my soul. At that moment I embraced the whole world in my love. I loved the hostess with her ferronnière and her Imperial bosom, I loved her husband, her guests, her footmen, even Anisimov the engineer who was regarding me with dislike. And for her father with his home-cobbled boots and the same tender smile as his daughter’s, for him I felt at that moment a sort of rapturous affection.
‘The mazurka came to an end and the host and hostess invited their guests to sit down to supper, but Colonel B—– declined, saying that he had to be up early in the morning, and took his leave of them. I was terrified that Varenka too would be taken away, but she and her mother stayed on.
