A family get-together here in the ballroom was particularly galling to Natasha - was there nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball? She didn't listen, and didn't look at Vera, who was going on about her green dress.
At last the Tsar stopped dancing and stood beside his latest partner (he had danced with three) as the music came to an end. A worried adjutant ran over to the Rostovs and begged them to move a bit further away, though they were already up against the wall, and then the orchestra struck up again, this time with the measured rhythm and inviting strains of a waltz. The Tsar glanced down the ballroom with a smile on his face. A moment passed; no one came out to begin. The adjutant who had been appointed Master of Ceremonies went over to Countess Bezukhov and asked her to dance. She gave a smile, raised a hand and placed it on the adjutant's shoulder without a single glance at him. The adjutant knew what he was doing. Taking a firm hold of his partner, he guided her casually, confidently, into a smooth gliding movement round the edge of the circle, then at the corner of the ballroom he turned his partner with an upward swoop of her left hand, and not a sound was heard against the quickening strains of the music beyond the measured jingle of the spurs on the adjutant's expertly flashing feet and the swish of his partner's swirling velvet skirt as every third beat brought her whisking through a turn.
Natasha watched them on the verge of tears, so disappointed that someone else was dancing that first round of the waltz.
Prince Andrey, wearing the white uniform of a cavalry colonel with white stockings and light shoes, was standing towards the front of the circle not far from the Rostovs, looking happy and excited. Baron Firhoff was talking to him about the first session of the State Council due to be held next day. As someone close to Speransky, involved in the work of the legislative commission, Prince Andrey could be relied on for sound information about that session, as opposed to the many rumours that were going round. But he wasn't listening to what Firhoff was saying; he was looking in turn from the Tsar to the gentlemen intending to dance but not yet bold enough to enter the ring. He was watching them closely, these gentlemen who had gone all shy in the presence of the Tsar, and the ladies who were dying to be asked to dance.
Pierre went over to Prince Andrey and took him by the arm.
'You're always dancing. Look, my protegee is here, the younger Rostov girl. Ask her,' he said.
'Where is she?' asked Bolkonsky. 'I'm sorry,' he said, turning to the baron, 'we'll finish this conversation somewhere else, but at a ball one must dance.' He went over in the direction indicated by Pierre. Natasha's desperately panicky face met his gaze. He knew her immediately and guessed what she was going through, realizing that this was her debut. He remembered what she had said at the window, and with a look of delight on his face he approached Countess Rostov.
'Allow me to introduce my daughter,' said the countess, reddening.
'I've had the pleasure of meeting you all before, if the countess remembers,' said Prince Andrey, with a low bow of great courtesy, which belied Madame Peronsky's comments on his rudeness. He went up to Natasha and raised his hand to put it around her waist without negotiating an invitation to dance. He offered her the waltz. The timorous expression on Natasha's face, poised between despair and ecstasy, changed at once into a blissful, girlish smile of gratitude.
'I've been waiting so long for you,' came the message from that worried but happy young girl, a smile shining from her glistening eyes as she raised her hand to Prince Andrey's shoulder. They were the second couple to walk out into the ring.
Prince Andrey was one of the best dancers of his day. Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their satin slippers did what they had to do so easily and with no effort on her part, while her face glowed with pure happiness.
Her bared neck and arms were skinny, quite unattractive compared with Helene's shoulders. Her little shoulders were narrow, her bosom was undefined, her arms were slender. But Helene had been, so to speak, varnished by thousands of eyes that had caressed her form, whereas Natasha seemed like a young girl exposing her body for the first time, who would have been terribly embarrassed if she hadn't been assured on every side that it was all very necessary.
Prince Andrey loved dancing. He had been anxious to get away as fast as he could from the political or high-minded conversations that everyone was trying to draw him into, and also keen to break the irksome ring of constraint caused by the presence of the Tsar. This was why he had gone off to dance, and he had chosen Natasha as a partner because Pierre had pointed her out, and also because she was the first pretty girl to catch his eye. But the moment he put his arm round that slender, supple, quivering waist, and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling so close to him, the champagne of her beauty went to his head. He felt a thrill of new life and rejuvenation as he drew a deep breath, left her and stood there watching the other couples.
CHAPTER 17
After Prince Andrey, Boris came up and asked Natasha to dance, and he was followed by the dancing adjutant who had started the ball, and several other young men. Flushed with happiness, Natasha passed on her spare partners to Sonya, and never stopped dancing all evening. What fascinated everyone else at the ball she didn't notice and didn't even see. She didn't notice that the Tsar had a long conversation with the French ambassador, that he was unusually gracious towards one particular lady, that Prince So-and-so and Mr What's-his-name had said and done such and such, that Helene had been a brilliant success, and that a certain somebody had paid her close attention. She didn't even see the Tsar, and she became aware that he had gone only when she noticed the ball livening up after his departure.
In one of the liveliest cotillions just before supper Prince Andrey danced again with Natasha. He reminded her of when he had first seen her on the avenue at Otradnoye, and how she couldn't get to sleep that night in the moonlight, and he told her he had unintentionally heard what she was saying. Natasha blushed at these reminders and tried to make excuses, as if there was something embarrassing in the emotion which Prince Andrey had unintentionally overheard her expressing.
Like all men who have grown up in society Prince Andrey was pleased when he encountered something in that world that did not carry the usual society stamp. And Natasha was exactly that, with her sense of wonder, her enthusiasm, her diffidence and even the mistakes she made when she spoke French. His manner was particularly gentle and solicitous as he escorted her and talked to her. Sitting at her side, chatting about the simplest things, nothing in particular, Prince Andrey admired the radiant brilliance of her eyes and her smile, which had nothing to do with what she was saying but came from her own inner happiness. Natasha was chosen again and again, and whenever she got up with a smile and went off to dance, Prince Andrey particularly admired the mixture of timidity and gracefulness that she presented. In the middle of the cotillion Natasha was on her way back to her place, breathless at the end of a figure, when she was chosen yet again by another partner. Tired and panting, she demurred for an instant, on the point of refusing, but immediately put her hand on her partner's shoulder, beaming joyfully at Prince Andrey.
'I'd have been glad to have a rest and sit next to you. I am tired, but you see how they keep asking me, and I'm so pleased and happy, and I love everyone, including you, and I know all about it,' said the smile and more, much more besides. When her partner left her side, Natasha dashed across the room to choose two ladies for the next figure.
'If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she's going to be my wife,' Prince Andrey said to himself - much to his own surprise - as he watched her. She went to her cousin first.
'The stupid things that sometimes come into your mind!' thought Prince Andrey. 'But one thing's for sure - that girl is so lovely and so unusual she'll be married before she's been out for a month since dancing here . . . She's something quite exceptional,' he thought, as Natasha seated herself beside him, adjusting a stray rose on her bodice.
At the end of the cotillion the
old count in his blue swallowtail coat came over to the young people who had been dancing. He invited Prince Andrey to come and see them and asked his daughter whether she was having a good time. At first Natasha didn't answer; she just smiled a gently reproachful smile that said, 'How could you ask a question like that?' Then she said, 'I'm having the best time of my whole life!' and Prince Andrey watched as she half-raised her slender arms as if to embrace her father, and dropped them again at once. Natasha was indeed having the happiest time of her life. She was at the very peak of happiness, when a person is transformed into someone completely good and kind, and rejects the slightest possibility of evil, misery and grief.
It was at this ball that Pierre felt humiliated for the first time by the position his wife now occupied in the highest court circles. He was sullen and distracted. A deep furrow lined his forehead as he stood by a window, staring out over his spectacles and seeing no one. Natasha passed by near to him on her way to supper. She was struck by Pierre's dark and miserable appearance. She stopped and turned to face him. She so much wanted to help him, to let him have some of her own overflowing happiness. 'What a lovely evening, Count,' she said, 'isn't it?'
Pierre gave a faraway smile, obviously not taking in what she was saying. 'Yes, I'm very glad,' he said.
'How could anybody be unhappy with anything tonight?' thought Natasha. 'Especially someone as nice as Bezukhov.'
In Natasha's eyes the people at the ball were all the same - nice, kind, beautiful people - and they all loved each other. Nobody would think of harming anybody else, so they must be happy, all of them.
CHAPTER 18
Next day Prince Andrey remembered the ball, but not for very long. 'Yes, it was a splendid ball,' he thought. 'And . . . oh yes, that Rostov girl is so sweet. There's something fresh about her, something unusual and distinctive - she doesn't seem to belong to Petersburg.' Then, with no further thoughts about yesterday's ball, he had a good drink of tea and got down to work.
But either from tiredness or lack of sleep he was in no mood for work, and he couldn't get anything done. He was for ever carping about his own work - something he often did - and he was delighted when he heard that someone had called to see him.
The visitor was Bitsky, a man to be found on every commission and at all levels of Petersburg society, a passionate devotee of all the latest ideas, especially Speransky's, an inveterate disseminator of metropolitan news, and one of those men who choose their opinions the way they choose their clothes - according to fashion - which only serves to make them seem more partisan than anyone else. Looking businesslike and scarcely waiting to remove his hat, he ran over to Prince Andrey and began to blurt out what he had come to say. He had just heard details from the State Council that had sat that morning; the Tsar had opened the session and Bitsky waxed enthusiastic on the subject. The Tsar's speech had been quite remarkable. It had been the kind of speech that only a constitutional monarch could have delivered. 'The Emperor said quite bluntly that the Council and Senate are estates of the realm. He said that government must be founded not on arbitrary authority but on solid principles. The Emperor said that the fiscal system must be overhauled and the accounts made public,' Bitsky announced, emphasizing certain words, and widening his eyes knowingly. 'Yes, today's events mark a new epoch, the greatest epoch in our history,' he concluded.
Prince Andrey listened to this account of the opening of the State Council, which he had been looking forward to so keenly and had valued so much, amazed that now it had happened this event made no impact on him and struck him as less than insignificant. He listened to Bitsky's eloquent enthusiasm with secret scorn. The simplest idea in the world was taking over his mind. 'Why should I bother? Why should Bitsky?' he thought. 'Why should we bother about what the Emperor was pleased to say to the Council? Can any of that make me happier or better than I am?'
And with this simple reflection all of Prince Andrey's previous interest in the current reforms was suddenly destroyed. Later that day Prince Andrey was due to dine with Speransky in what the latter had described as 'a little get-together' as he issued the invitation. This dinner, in the intimate domestic circle of the man he so much admired, had seemed very enticing to Prince Andrey, especially since he had not yet seen Speransky at home. But now he didn't feel like going.
At the appointed hour, however, Prince Andrey was to be seen entering Speransky's house alongside the Tavrichesky Garden. It was a small place, almost monastic in its extraordinary cleanliness, and there in the parquet-floored dining-room Prince Andrey, arriving slightly late at five o'clock, found Speransky's 'little get-together' of close associates already assembled. There were no ladies present, except Speransky's little daughter (who had a long face like her father) and her governess. The guests were Gervais, Magnitsky and Stolypin. Out in the vestibule Prince Andrey had caught the sound of raised voices and someone with a loud, distinctive guffaw - a sort of stage laugh. Someone's voice - it sounded like Speransky's - was ringing with a clear 'haw-haw-haw!' Prince Andrey had never heard Speransky laugh before, and this booming, resonant laughter coming from a great statesman struck him as odd.
Prince Andrey went into the dining-room. They were gathered in a group between two windows near to a little table laid with hors d'oeuvres. Speransky was standing by the table, a picture of joviality, wearing a grey swallowtail coat, with a star on his chest, and the same white waistcoat and high white stock that he had worn at the famous session of the State Council. His guests stood around him in a ring. Magnitsky had turned to face him and was half-way through a story. Speransky was listening, and laughing at what Magnitsky was going to say before he said it. As Prince Andrey walked in, Magnitsky's words were again drowned with laughter. Stolypin issued a deep-bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese, Gervais gave a wheezy chuckle and Speransky laughed in his calculated staccato.
Still laughing, Speransky offered Prince Andrey a soft, white hand. 'So nice to see you, Prince,' he said. 'Just a minute . . .' He turned to Magnitsky, interrupting his story. 'We have a pact this evening. We're going to enjoy a good dinner. No talking shop.' He turned back to the story-teller and gave another laugh.
With a sense of surprise and sad disappointment, Prince Andrey listened to Speransky's ringing tones and watched him as he laughed. This wasn't Speransky, it was someone else, he thought to himself. Everything in Speransky that had seemed mysterious and attractive suddenly struck Prince Andrey as patently obvious and unpleasant.
At dinner the conversation, which never faltered, seemed like something out of a joke-book. Magnitsky had hardly finished his story when another guest announced his willingness to tell them a funnier one. For the most part, the stories centred around, if not the actual service, the people who worked in it. It was as if this little circle had decided once and for all they were a completely useless lot and the only possible attitude to them was one of cheerful hilarity. Speransky told them about a deaf statesman at the council that morning who was asked for his opinion and replied that he was of the same opinion. Gervais described one case under revision that was remarkable for the stupidity of all concerned. Stolypin spoke with a stammer as he intervened with a few impassioned words on the abuses of the old regime, but this threatened to give the conversation a serious turn, so Magnitsky responded by making fun of Stolypin's earnest attitude. Then Gervais came in with another joke, and the conversation soon resumed its bantering tone.
It was clear that Speransky liked to put his work behind him, relax and seek amusement in his little group of friends; meanwhile the friends themselves understood what he wanted, and they were doing their best to amuse him and themselves at the same time. But Prince Andrey found this kind of jollity laboured and anything but jolly. Speransky's refined tones grated on him, and his constant laughter struck such a false note that Prince Andrey's sensitivities were somehow offended. Prince Andrey was the only one not laughing, and he began to worry that he might be a drag on this party. But no one noticed his lack of sym
pathy with the general mood. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Several times he tried to get into the conversation, but every time he did so his words were plucked away like a cork flung out of water. The jokiness of these people was quite beyond him. There was nothing crude or objectionable in what they were saying; it was all very witty and it might have been funny, but something was missing from it all, and whatever it was, it was the very essence of good humour - and they weren't even aware of its existence.
After dinner Speransky's daughter and her governess rose to leave the table. Speransky caressed his daughter with a white hand and gave her a kiss. Even this gesture was seen by Prince Andrey as something forced.
The men sat on and drank port like Englishmen. The talk turned to Napoleon's activities in Spain, of which they approved to a man, but in the middle of it all Prince Andrey suddenly came out against them. Speransky gave a smile, obviously wanting to change the subject, and launched into a completely irrelevant story. For some time everyone sat there in silence.
Ready at last to leave the table, Speransky replaced the cork in a bottle of wine and said, 'Costs a fortune nowadays, good wine!', gave it to the servant and got up. Everybody rose and went through into the drawing-room, chatting away as loud as ever. Speransky was handed two envelopes which had been delivered by a courier. He took them and went to his study. As soon as he had gone the party-like atmosphere subsided and the guests lapsed into a quiet and thoughtful conversation.
'On with the recitation!' said Speransky, coming out of his study. 'Remarkable talent!' he said to Prince Andrey. Magnitsky at once struck a theatrical pose and began to declaim some funny French poetry (composed by himself) ridiculing various well-known persons in Petersburg. Several times he was interrupted by applause. At the end of the recitation Prince Andrey went over to Speransky to take his leave.
'It's a bit early, isn't it? Where are you off to?' said Speransky.