Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
|
in another.
Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the
mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.
Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not
to talk, because Korsunsky was all the time running about
directing the figure. Vronsky and Anna sat almost opposite her.
She saw them with her long-sighted eyes, and saw them, too, close
by, when they met in the figures, and the more she saw of them
the more convinced was she that her unhappiness was complete.
She saw that they felt themselves alone in that crowded room.
And on Vronskys face, always so firm and independent, she saw
that look that had struck her, of bewilderment and humble
submissiveness, like the expression of an intelligent dog when it
has done wrong.
Anna smiled, and her smile was reflected by him. She grew
thoughtful, and he became serious. Some supernatural force drew
Kittys eyes to Annas face. She was fascinating in her simple
black dress, fascinating were her round arms with their
bracelets, fascinating was her firm neck with its thread of
pearls, fascinating the straying curls of her loose hair,
fascinating the graceful, light movements of her little feet and
hands, fascinating was that lovely face in its eagerness, but
there was something terrible and cruel in her fascination.
Kitty admired her more than ever, and more and more acute was her
suffering. Kitty felt overwhelmed, and her face showed it. When
Vronsky saw her, coming across her in the mazurka, he did not at
once recognize her, she was so changed.
"Delightful ball!" he said to her, for the sake of saying
something.
"Yes," she answered.
In the middle of the mazurka, repeating a complicated figure,
newly invented by Korsunsky, Anna came forward into the center of
the circle, chose two gentlemen, and summoned a lady and Kitty.
Kitty gazed at her in dismay as she went up. Anna looked at her
with drooping eyelids, and smiled, pressing her hand. But,
noticing that Kitty only responded to her smile by a look of
despair and amazement, she turned away from her, and began gaily
talking to the other lady.
"Yes, there is something uncanny, devilish and fascinating in
her," Kitty said to herself.
Anna did not mean to stay to supper, but the master of the house
began to press her to do so.
"Nonsense, Anna Arkadyevna," said Korsunsky, drawing her bare arm
under the sleeve of his dress coat, "Ive such an idea for a
_cotillion! Un bijou!_"
And he moved gradually on, trying to draw her along with him.
Their host smiled approvingly.
"No, I am not going to stay," answered Anna, smiling, but in
spite of her smile, both Korsunsky and the master of the house
saw from her resolute tone that she would not stay.
"No; why, as it is, I have danced more at your ball in Moscow than
I have all the winter in Petersburg," said Anna, looking round at
Vronsky, who stood near her. "I must rest a little before my
journey."
"Are you certainly going tomorrow then?" asked Vronsky.
"Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as it were wondering at the
boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering
brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said
it.
Anna Arkadyevna did not stay to supper, but went home.
Chapter 24
"Yes, there is something in me hateful, repulsive," thought Levin,
as he came away from the Shtcherbatskys, and walked in the
direction of his brothers lodgings. "And I dont get on with
other people. Pride, they say. No, I have no pride. If I had
any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position." And
he pictured to himself Vronsky, happy, good-natured, clever, and
self-possessed, certainly never placed in the awful position in
which he had been that evening. "Yes, she was bound to choose
him. So it had to be, and I cannot complain of anyone or
anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to imagine she
would care to join her life to mine? Who am I and what am I? A
nobody, not wanted by any one, nor of use to anybody." And he
recalled his brother Nikolay, and dwelt with pleasure on the
thought of him. "Isnt he right that everything in the world is
base and loathsome? And are we fair in our judgment of brother
Nikolay? Of course, from the point of view of Prokofy, seeing
him
Anna Karenina page 46 Anna Karenina page 48
|
