"How nice you've come in good time," he said to her, embracing
her waist; "such a bad habit to be late." Bending her left hand,
she laid it on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink
slippers began swiftly, lightly, and rhythmically moving over the
slippery floor in time to the music.
"It's a rest to waltz with you," he said to her, as they fell
into the first slow steps of the waltz. "It's exquisite--such
lightness, precision." He said to her the same thing he said to
almost all his partners whom he knew well.
She smiled at his praise, and continued to look about the room
over his shoulder. She was not like a girl at her first ball,
for whom all faces in the ballroom melt into one vision of
fairyland. And she was not a girl who had gone the stale round
of balls till every face in the ballroom was familiar and
tiresome. But she was in the middle stage between these two; she
was excited, and at the same time she had sufficient
self-possession to be able to observe. In the left corner of the
ballroom she saw the cream of society gathered together.
There--incredibly naked--was the beauty Lidi, Korsunsky's wife;
there was the lady of the house; there shone the bald head of
Krivin, always to be found where the best people were. In that
direction gazed the young men, not venturing to approach. There,
too, she descried Stiva, and there she saw the exquisite figure
and head of Anna in a black velvet gown. And _he_ was there.
Kitty had not seen him since the evening she refused Levin. With
her long-sighted eyes, she knew him at once, and was even aware
that he was looking at her.
"Another turn, eh? You're not tired?" said Korsunsky, a little
out of breath.
"No, thank you!"
"Where shall I take you?"
"Madame Karenina's here, I think...take me to her."
"Wherever you command."
And Korsunsky began waltzing with measured steps straight towards
the group in the left corner, continually saying, "Pardon,
mesdames, pardon, pardon, mesdames"; and steering his course
through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon, and not disarranging
a feather, he turned his partner sharply round, so that her slim
ankles, in light transparent stockings, were exposed to view, and
her train floated out in fan shape and covered Krivin's knees.
Korsunsky bowed, set straight his open shirt front, and gave her
his arm to conduct her to Anna Arkadyevna. Kitty, flushed, took
her train from Krivin's knees, and, a little giddy, looked round,
seeking Anna. Anna was not in lilac, as Kitty had so urgently
wished, but in a black, low-cut, velvet gown, showing her full
throat and shoulders, that looked as though carved in old ivory,
and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender wrists. The whole gown
was trimmed with Venetian guipure. On her head, among her black
hair--her own, with no false additions--was a little wreath of
pansies, and a bouquet of the same in the black ribbon of her
sash among white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that
was noticeable was the little wilful tendrils of her curly hair
that would always break free about her neck and temples. Round
her well-cut, strong neck was a thread of pearls.