Next day the countess sent for Boris and had a word with him, and after that he gave up going the Rostovs’.
CHAPTER 14
On New Year’s Eve 1809 an old grandee who had been prominent in Catherine’s time gave a ball and a midnight supper. The Tsar and the diplomatic corps were due to attend.
The well-known mansion of this grandee on the English Embankment was ablaze with innumerable lights. Policemen were deployed at the brightly lit, red-carpeted entrance – not just constables but a police chief and dozens of officers. As one carriage drove away another rolled up, with grooms in red livery and grooms in plumed hats. Men in uniforms with stars and ribbons emerged from the carriages, steps clanged down and ladies in satin and ermine stepped out daintily and hurried indoors passing noiselessly over the red baize.
Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the crowd and caps were doffed. ‘Is it the Emperor? . . . No, it’s only a minister . . . a prince . . . an ambassador . . . Look at those plumes! . . .’ came various voices in the crowd. One man better dressed than anyone else seemed to know everyone, and as the dignitaries of the day arrived he would say who they were.
A third of the guests were already there at the ball, but the Rostovs, who had been invited, were still getting ready.
There had been many a discussion and much fuss in the Rostov family ahead of this ball, and much worrying that they might not be invited, that the dresses wouldn’t be ready in time, and nothing would go right.
The Rostovs were to be accompanied to the ball by Marya Peronsky, friend and relative of the countess, a thin lady with a sallow complexion who, as maid-of-honour at the court of the Dowager Empress, was needed by the provincial Rostovs to guide them around the higher circles of Petersburg society.
The Rostovs were due to pick her up by ten o’clock at the Tavrichesky Garden, but it was now five to ten and the young ladies were still not ready.
Natasha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up that morning at eight o’clock, and spent the whole day in feverish worry and a whirl of activity. All her energies had been directed since early morning to the single aim of getting herself, her mother and Sonya turned out as nicely as they could possibly be. Sonya and her mother had placed themselves entirely in her hands. The countess was to wear a burgundy velvet dress, her two daughters white tulle dresses over pink silk slips with roses on their bodices. Hairstyles would be
The basic essentials were out of the way, everybody’s feet, arms, necks and ears having been scrupulously scrubbed, powdered and perfumed in readiness for the ball. Legs and feet were adorned with open-work silk stockings and white satin shoes; everyone’s hair was almost done. Sonya was at the stage of finishing touches, as was the countess, but Natasha had spent so much time looking after everybody else that she was now running late. She was still sitting at the mirror with a housecoat over her thin little shoulders. Sonya stood in the middle of the room, dressed and ready, fastening down one last recalcitrant ribbon and hurting her tiny finger as she pushed a pin squeakily through the silk.
‘No, Sonya, not like that!’ said Natasha, looking round, both hands clutching her hair, which the maid who was arranging it wasn’t quick enough to let go of. ‘It doesn’t go like that. Come here.’ Sonya squatted down. Natasha adjusted the ribbon.
‘Please, miss, you mustn’t move like that,’ said the maid, still holding Natasha’s hair.
‘Oh, my goodness! Can’t you wait a minute? There you are, Sonya.’
‘Are you nearly ready?’ came the countess’s voice. ‘It’s nearly ten.’
‘Yes, yes, two minutes . . . Are you ready, Mamma?’
‘Only my cap to pin on.’
‘Don’t do it without me,’ shouted Natasha. ‘You don’t know how!’
‘But it’s ten o’clock.’
They had agreed on half-past ten as a good time to arrive at the ball, and here was Natasha still not dressed – and they had to go via the Tavrichesky Garden.
With her hair done at last, Natasha, wearing her mother’s dressing-jacket and a short petticoat, which made her dancing-shoes very noticeable, ran over to Sonya, examined her from head to foot, and then ran across to her mother. Turning her mother’s head round, she pinned the cap on, gave her a quick peck on her grey hair and ran back to the maids, who were still taking the skirt up.
Natasha’s skirt was the problem: it had been too long. Two maids were finishing the hem, hurriedly biting off the threads. A third one, with pins sticking out between teeth and lips, was running back and forwards between the countess and Sonya; a fourth was holding up the whole tulle creation in her arms.
‘Mavrushka, darling, do please hurry!’
‘Pass me that thimble, miss.’
‘How much longer?’ said the count from the doorway, as he started into the room. ‘Get your perfume on. Madame Peronsky must be fed up with waiting.’
