Prince Andrey, wearing the white uniform of a cavalry colonel with white stockings and light shoes, was standing towards the front of the circle not far from the Rostovs, looking happy and excited. Baron Firhoff was talking to him about the first session of the State Council due to be held next day. As someone close to Speransky, involved in the work of the legislative commission, Prince Andrey could be relied on for sound information about that session, as opposed to the many rumours that were going round. But he wasn’t listening to what Firhoff was saying; he was looking in turn from the Tsar to the gentlemen intending to dance but not yet bold enough to enter the ring. He was watching them closely, these gentlemen who had gone all shy in the presence of the Tsar, and the ladies who were dying to be asked to dance.
Pierre went over to Prince Andrey and took him by the arm.
‘You’re always dancing. Look, my protégée is here, the younger Rostov girl. Ask her,’ he said.
‘Where is she?’ asked Bolkonsky. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning to the baron, ‘we’ll finish this conversation somewhere else, but at a ball one must dance.’ He went over in the direction indicated by Pierre. Natasha’s desperately panicky face met his gaze. He knew her immediately and guessed what she was going through, realizing that this was her début. He remembered what she had said at the window, and with a look of delight on his face he approached Countess Rostov.
‘Allow me to introduce my daughter,’ said the countess, reddening.
‘I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you all before, if the countess remembers,’ said Prince Andrey, with a low bow of great courtesy, which belied Madame Peronsky’s comments on his rudeness. He went up to Natasha and raised his hand to put it around her waist without negotiating an invitation to dance. He offered her the waltz. The timorous expression on Natasha’s face, poised between despair and ecstasy, changed at once into a blissful, girlish smile of gratitude.
‘I’ve been waiting so long for you,’ came the message from that worried but happy young girl, a smile shining from her glistening eyes as she raised her hand to Prince Andrey’s shoulder. They were the second couple to walk out into the ring.
Prince Andrey was one of the best dancers of his day. Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their satin slippers did what they had to do so easily and with no effort on her part, while her face glowed with pure happiness.
Her bared neck and arms were skinny, quite unattractive compared with Hélène’s shoulders. Her little shoulders were narrow, her bosom was undefined, her arms were slender. But Hélène had been, so to speak, varnished by thousands of eyes that had caressed her form, whereas Natasha seemed like a young girl exposing her body for the first time, who would have been terribly embarrassed if she hadn’t been assured on every side that it was all very necessary.
Prince Andrey loved dancing. He had been anxious to get away as fast as he could from the political or high-minded conversations that everyone was trying to draw him into, and also keen to break the irksome ring of constraint caused by the presence of the Tsar. This was why he had gone off to dance, and he had chosen Natasha as a partner because Pierre had pointed her out, and also because she was the first pretty girl to catch his eye. But the moment he put his arm round that slender, supple, quivering waist, and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling so close to him, the champagne of her beauty went to his head. He felt a thrill of new life and rejuvenation as he drew a deep breath, left her and stood there watching the other couples.
CHAPTER 17
After Prince Andrey, Boris came up and asked Natasha to dance, and he was followed by the dancing adjutant who had started the ball, and several other young men. Flushed with happiness, Natasha passed on her spare partners to Sonya, and never stopped dancing all evening. What fascinated everyone else at the ball she didn’t notice and didn’t even see. She didn’t notice that the Tsar had a long conversation with the French ambassador, that he was unusually gracious towards one particular lady, that Prince So-and-so and Mr What’s-his-name had said and done such and such, that Hélène had been a brilliant success, and that a certain somebody had paid her close attention. She didn’t even see the Tsar, and she became aware that he had gone only when she noticed the ball livening up after his departure.
In one of the liveliest cotillions just before supper Prince Andrey danced again with Natasha. He reminded her of when he had first seen her on the avenue at Otradnoye, and how she couldn’t get to sleep that night in the moonlight, and he told her he had unintentionally heard what she was saying. Natasha blushed at these reminders and tried to make excuses, as if there was something embarrassing in the emotion which Prince Andrey had unintentionally overheard her expressing.
