War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [297]
XV
Natasha had not had a free moment since the morning of that day and had never once had time to think about what lay ahead of her.
In the damp, cold air, in the incomplete darkness of the crowded, rocking carriage, she imagined vividly for the first time what awaited her there at the ball, in the brightly lit rooms—music, flowers, dancing, the sovereign, all the brilliant youth of Petersburg. What awaited her was so beautiful that she did not even believe it could happen: so out of keeping it was with the impression of the cold, the crowdedness, the darkness of the carriage. She understood what awaited her only when, having stepped over the red baize of the porch, she entered the front hall, took off her fur coat, and walked beside Sonya in front of her mother between the flowers on the lighted stairway. Only then did she remember how one had to behave at a ball and try to assume the majestic manner she considered necessary for a girl at a ball. But, luckily for her, she felt her eyes looking everywhere at once: she saw nothing clearly, her pulse beat a hundred times a minute, and the blood began to throb in her heart. She was unable to assume that manner which would have made her ridiculous, and walked on, faint with excitement and only trying as hard as she could to conceal it. And this was the manner that was most becoming to her. Before them, behind them, also talking quietly and also in ball gowns, other guests were entering. The mirrors on the stairway reflected ladies in white, blue, pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their bare arms and necks.
Natasha looked in the mirrors and in the reflections could not distinguish herself from the others. Everything mixed into one brilliant procession. At the entrance to the first room, the monotonous noise of voices, footsteps, greetings deafened Natasha, the light and brilliance dazzled her still more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing by the door for half an hour saying the same words to the entering people—“Charmé de vous voir”*346 —greeted the Rostovs and Mme Peronsky in the same way.
The two girls in white dresses, with identical roses in their dark hair, curtsied identically, but the hostess involuntarily rested her gaze longer on the slender Natasha. She looked at her and smiled at her alone with a special smile, in addition to her hostess smile. Gazing at her, the hostess may have remembered the golden, irretrievable time of her girlhood, and her own first ball. The host also followed Natasha with his eyes and asked the count which one was his daughter.
“Charmante!” he said, kissing the tips of his fingers.
The guests stood in the ballroom, crowding by the door, waiting for the sovereign. The countess placed herself in the first rows of this crowd. Natasha heard and felt that several voices were asking about her and looking at her. She realized that she was liked by those who paid attention to her, and this observation reassured her somewhat.
“There are some like us, and some worse than us,” she thought.
Mme Peronsky named for the countess the most important persons at the ball.
“That one is the Dutch ambassador, see, the gray-haired one,” she said, pointing to a little old man with abundant, curly silver-gray hair, surrounded by ladies whom he made laugh at something.
“And here she is, the queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezukhov,” she said, pointing to the entering Hélène.
“How beautiful! She yields nothing to Marya Antonovna.17 See how the men dangle after her, young and old. Both beautiful and intelligent. They say Prince——has lost his mind over her. But these two here, though they’re not beautiful, are still more surrounded.”
She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room with a very unattractive daughter.
“She’s a millionaire bride,” said Mme Peronsky. “And here come the wooers.”
“That’s Madame Bezukhov’s brother, Anatole Kuragin,” she said, pointing to a handsome horse guard who walked past them, looking somewhere above the ladies from the height of his raised head. “Handsome, isn’t he? They say he’s to