‘Ready, miss,’ said the maid, holding up the shortened tulle skirt between finger and thumb, blowing something off it, and shaking it out to show off the pure airy fluffiness of what she held in her hands.
Natasha began to get into the dress.
‘In a minute, in a minute! Don’t come in, Papa!’ she shouted to her father as he opened the door, her face drowned in a sea of tulle. Sonya banged the door to. A moment later the count was allowed in. He was dressed in his blue swallowtail coat, long stockings and light shoes, all nicely perfumed and pomaded.
‘Oh, Papa, you do look nice! You really do,’ said Natasha, standing in the middle of the room, smoothing out the folds of her tulle.
‘Just a minute, miss, if you don’t mind . . .’ said one of the maids, lifting the skirt and switching the pins from one corner of her mouth to the other with her tongue.
‘You can say what you like!’ cried Sonya in despairing tones as she gazed at Natasha’s dress. ‘You can say what you like – it’s still too long!’
Natasha stepped back a little to inspect herself in the long glass. The skirt did seem too long.
‘Lord bless ’e, ma’am, it bain’t be too long at all,’ said Mavrushka, scrambling along on her knees after her young lady.
‘Well, if it is, we can tack it up. It’ll only take a minute,’ said Dunyasha, getting a grip on things. And pulling a needle from the cloth on her chest she set to work again on the floor.
At this point the countess, arrayed in cap and velvet gown, walked diffidently back into the room, stepping softly.
‘Oh, I say! Look at this beautiful woman of mine!’ cried the count. ‘She’s prettier than all of you!’ He made as if to embrace her, but she drew back with a blush on her face to avoid getting crumpled.
‘Mamma, your cap should be at an angle,’ said Natasha. ‘Let me do it again,’ and she darted forward. The maids turning up her skirt were not ready for a lunge like this and a piece of tulle was torn off.
‘Mercy on us, what’s happened? Hey, it wasn’t my fault . . .’
‘It’s all right, I can run it up, it won’t show,’ said Dunyasha.
‘Oh, my beauty, my little queen!’ said the old nurse coming in at the doorway. ‘And little Sonya, too. Oh, you beautiful girls!’
It was a quarter past ten when at last they were seated in their carriage and able to drive off. And they still had to go round by the Tavrichesky Garden. Madame Peronsky was there, ready and waiting. For all her age and plainness, she had been undergoing the same thing as the Rostovs, but without all the fluster, because it was all a matter of routine to her. Her ageing and unattractive body had been subjected to a similar process of scrubbing and scenting and powdering, she had been washed no less scrupulously behind her ears, and like the Rostovs’ nurse, her old maid had gone into raptures over her mistress’s outfit when she had come into the drawing-room dressed in her yellow gown adorned with the royal monogram. Madame Peronsky waxed lyrical about the Rostovs in their finery, and they did likewise about her fine dress and remarkable taste. Then, at eleven o’clock, fussing a good deal over their coiffures and their ballgowns, they seated themselves in the carriages and drove off.
CHAPTER 15
Natasha had not had a minute to herself all day, and it had never occurred to her to wonder what lay ahead.
In the damp, chill air and the semi-dark confines of the swaying carriage she now began to imagine for the first time what was in store for her there, at the ball, in the brightly lit halls – the music, the flowers, the dancing, the Tsar, all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The prospect before her was so wonderful she couldn’t really believe it would come true: it was all so out of keeping with the chilly darkness of the cramped carriage. Everything that lay ahead began to dawn on her only when she had walked across the red cloth, entered the vestibule, taken off her fur-coat and begun to walk up the brilliantly lit staircase with Sonya at her side, her mother just behind and flowers on all sides. It was then that she remembered how to behave on such an occasion, and she did her best to assume the majestic manner that she considered essential for a girl to adopt at a ball. But as luck would have it she was too dazzled to see anything clearly, her pulse thumped a hundred beats to a minute and the blood rushed to her heart, so she was unable to strike a pose that might have made her look silly. She walked on, almost swooning with excitement and struggling to hide it. And this was the manner that suited her best. Ahead of them and behind, guests were walking along dressed in similar ballgowns and talking to each other in similarly subdued tones. All the way up the staircase mirrors reflected ladies in white, blue and pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare arms and necks.
