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By Root 3391 0

with little beards. In front stood, probably, a tsar and tsaritsa. The tsar waved his right arm and, evidently timid, sang something poorly, then sat down on a raspberry-colored throne. The girl, who had first been in white, then in light blue, was now dressed in nothing but a shift, with her hair down, and stood by the throne. She sang ruefully about something, addressing the tsaritsa; but the tsar sternly waved his arm, and from the sides came men with bare legs and women with bare legs, and they began dancing all together. Then the violins began to play very shrilly and merrily. One of the girls, with fat bare legs and skinny arms, separated from the others, went into the wings, straightened her bodice, came out to the center and started leaping and rapidly slapping one foot against the other. Everyone in the parterre clapped their hands and shouted bravo. Then one of the men went to the corner. In the orchestra the cymbals and trumpets struck up more loudly, and this one man with bare legs started leaping high in the air and shifting his feet. (This man was Duport, who earned sixty thousand silver roubles for this art.) Everyone in the parterre, in the boxes, and in the gallery started clapping and shouting with all their might, and the man stopped and started smiling and bowing on all sides. Then the other men and women with bare legs danced, then one of the tsars again shouted something to the music, and they all began to sing. But suddenly a storm broke, the orchestra played chromatic scales and diminished seventh chords, and everyone ran and again dragged one of those present into the wings, and the curtain fell. Again a terrible noise and clamor arose among the spectators, and everyone started shouting with rapturous faces:

“Duport! Duport! Duport!”

Natasha no longer found it strange. She looked around with pleasure, smiling joyfully.

“N’est-ce pas qu’il est admirable—Duport?”*375 said Hélène, turning to her.

“Oh, oui,” answered Natasha.

X

During the entr’acte there was a gust of cold in Hélène’s box, the door opened, and Anatole came in, ducking his head and trying not to snag on anyone.

“Allow me to introduce my brother to you,” said Hélène, her eyes darting uneasily from Natasha to Anatole. Natasha turned her pretty head and smiled at the handsome fellow over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as good-looking close up as from afar, sat down next to her and said that he had long wished to have this pleasure, ever since the Naryshkins’ ball, where he had had the pleasure, which he had not forgotten, of seeing her. With women Kuragin was much more intelligent and simple than in the company of men. He spoke boldly and simply, and Natasha was strangely and pleasantly struck that there was not only nothing frightening in this man, of whom there was so much talk, but that, on the contrary, he had a most naïvely cheerful and good-natured smile.

Anatole Kuragin asked what her impression of the performance was, and told her that during the previous performance, Semyonova had fallen on stage.

“But you know, Countess,” he said suddenly, addressing her like an old, long-standing acquaintance, “we’re organizing a costume carousel; you must take part in it: we’ll have great fun. Everybody’s getting together at the Arkharovs’. Please come, won’t you?” he said.

While saying this, he never took his smiling eyes from Natasha’s face, neck, and bared arms. Natasha knew beyond doubt that he admired her. She enjoyed that, but for some reason his presence made her feel constrained, hot, and oppressed. When she was not looking at him, she felt that he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily intercepted his glance, preferring that he look into her eyes. But, looking into his eyes, she felt with fear that between him and her that barrier of modesty which she had always felt between herself and other men was not there at all. Without knowing how herself, after five minutes she felt terribly close to this man. Whenever she turned away, she was afraid he might take her bare arm from behind or kiss her on the neck.