War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [298]
“And that fat one in spectacles is the universal Freemason,” said Mme Peronsky, pointing to Bezukhov. “Set him next to his wife: a real tomfool!”
Pierre walked along, rolling his fat body, parting the crowd, nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he was walking through a marketplace crowd. He moved through the crowd, evidently searching for someone.
Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, that tomfool, as Mme Peronsky had called him, and knew that Pierre was looking for them in the crowd, and for her in particular. Pierre had promised to be at the ball and to introduce partners to her.
But before he reached them, Bezukhov stopped beside a very handsome dark-haired man of medium height, in a white uniform, who was standing by a window talking to a tall man with stars and a sash. Natasha immediately recognized the young man of medium height in the white uniform: it was Bolkonsky, who seemed to her to have grown younger, more cheerful, and better looking.
“Here’s another acquaintance, Bolkonsky, see, mama?” said Natasha, pointing to Prince Andrei. “Remember, he spent the night with us at Otradnoe.”
“Ah, you know him?” said Mme Peronsky. “I can’t bear him. Il fait à présent la pluie et le beau temps.*347 And such boundless pride! Takes after his papa. Got in with Speransky, drafting some sort of projects. Look how he treats the ladies! She’s talking to him, and he turns away,” she said, pointing to him. “I’d give it to him, if he behaved with me the way he does with these ladies.”
XVI
Suddenly everything stirred, the crowd began to talk, moved together, parted again, and between the two rows of people, to the sounds of the struck-up music, the sovereign came in. Behind him walked the host and hostess. The sovereign walked quickly, nodding to right and left, as if trying to get quickly past this first moment of meeting. The musicians played a polonaise well-known then from the words written to it. These words began: “Alexander, Elizaveta, how we all admire you.” The sovereign walked into the drawing room; the crowd surged towards the door; several persons with changed expressions hurriedly went there and back. The crowd surged away from the drawing-room door again, and the sovereign appeared in it, talking with the hostess. A young man with a perplexed look pressed up to the ladies, asking them to step aside. Some ladies with faces that expressed a total obliviousness to all social conventions pushed forward, ruining their fancy dresses. Men began to approach the ladies and form couples for the polonaise.
Everyone made way, and the sovereign, smiling and out of step with the music, led the hostess through the drawing-room door. After him came the host with Mme M. A. Naryshkin, then ambassadors, ministers, various generals, whom Mme Peronsky kept naming without pause. More than half of the ladies had partners and were joining or preparing to join the polonaise. Natasha sensed that she would be left with her mother and Sonya among the smaller part of the ladies pushed back against the wall and not asked to the polonaise. She stood, her thin arms lowered, her barely defined bosom rising rhythmically, holding her breath, her shining, frightened eyes looking straight ahead with an expression of readiness either for the greatest happiness or for the greatest grief. She was interested neither in the sovereign nor in any of the important persons Mme Peronsky pointed out—she had one thought: “Can it be that no one will come up to me, can it be that I won’t dance among the first, can it be that all these men won’t notice me, who now don’t even seem to see me,