Book Six: 1808-10 - Chapter XVI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward andthen back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperorentered to the sounds of music that had immediately struck up.Behind him walked his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowingto right and left as if anxious to get the first moments of thereception over. The band played the polonaise in vogue at that time onaccount of the words that had been set to it, beginning: "Alexander,Elisaveta, all our hearts you ravish quite..." The Emperor passed onto the drawing room, the crowd made a rush for the doors, andseveral persons with excited faces hurried there and back again.Then the crowd hastily retired from the drawing-room door, at whichthe Emperor reappeared talking to the hostess. A young man, lookingdistraught, pounced down on the ladies, asking them to move aside.Some ladies, with faces betraying complete forgetfulness of all therules of decorum, pushed forward to the detriment of their toilets.The men began to choose partners and take their places for thepolonaise.

　　Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawingroom leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to themusic. The host followed with Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then cameambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskayadiligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners andwere taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for thepolonaise. Natasha felt that she would be left with her mother andSonya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, nothaving been invited to dance. She stood with her slender armshanging down, her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly,and with bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straightbefore her, evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. Shewas not concerned about the Emperor or any of those great peoplewhom Peronskaya was pointing out- she had but one thought: "Is itpossible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first todance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me?They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as if theywere saying, 'Ah, she's not the one I'm after, so it's not worthlooking at her!' No, it's impossible," she thought. "They must knowhow I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they wouldenjoy dancing with me."

　　The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerabletime, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natasha's ears.She wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at theother end of the room. She and the countess and Sonya were standing bythemselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd ofstrangers, with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone.Prince Andrew with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them.The handsome Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm andlooked at Natasha as one looks at a wall. Boris passed them twiceand each time turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing,came up to them.

　　This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha- as if therewere nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She didnot listen to or look at Vera, who was telling her something about herown green dress.

　　At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had dancedwith three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to theRostovs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was theywere already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded thedistinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. TheEmperor looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one hadyet begun dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, wentup to Countess Bezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilinglyraised her hand and laid it on his shoulder without looking at him.The aide-de-camp, an adept in his art, grasping his partner firmlyround her waist, with confident deliberation started smoothly, glidingfirst round the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the roomhe caught Helene's left hand and turned her, the only sound audible,apart from the ever-quickening music, being the rhythmic click ofthe spurs on his rapid, agile feet, while at every third beat hispartner's velvet dress spread out and seemed to flash as she whirledround. Natasha gazed at them and was ready to cry because it was notshe who was dancing that first turn of the waltz.

　　Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearingstockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright inthe front row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoffwas talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of Stateto be held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected withSperanski and participating in the work of the legislative commission,could give reliable information about that sitting, concerning whichvarious rumors were current. But not listening to what Firhoff wassaying, he was gazing now at the sovereign and now at the menintending to dance who had not yet gathered courage to enter thecircle.

　　Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor'spresence, and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked todance.

　　Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.

　　"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostova, here. Askher," he said.

　　"Where is she?" asked Bolkonski. "Excuse me!" he added, turning tothe baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere- at a ballone must dance." He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated.The despairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught hiseye. He recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was herdebut, remembered her conversation at the window, and with anexpression of pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostova.

　　"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter," said the countess,with heightened color.

　　"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countessremembers me," said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quitebelying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and approachingNatasha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completedhis invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression onNatasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenlybrightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.

　　"I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy littlegirl seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, asshe raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were thesecond couple to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the bestdancers of his day and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feetin their white satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly,and independently of herself, while her face beamed with ecstatichappiness. Her slender bare arms and neck were not beautiful- comparedto Helene's her shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. ButHelene seemed, as it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousandsof looks that had scanned her person, while Natasha was like a girlexposed for the first time, who would have felt very much ashamedhad she not been assured that this was absolutely necessary.

　　Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly aspossible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressedto him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint hedisliked, caused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and hadchosen Natasha because Pierre pointed her out to him and because shewas the first pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had heembraced that slender supple figure and felt her stirring so closeto him and smiling so near him than the wine of her charm rose tohis head, and he felt himself revived and rejuvenated when afterleaving her he stood breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.