Part 1 - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The ball was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked
up the great staircase, flooded with light, and lined with
flowers and footmen in powder and red coats. From the rooms came
a constant, steady hum, as from a hive, and the rustle of
movement; and while on the landing between trees they gave last
touches to their hair and dresses before the mirror, they heard
from the ballroom the careful, distinct notes of the fiddles of
the orchestra beginning the first waltz. A little old man in
civilian dress, arranging his gray curls before another mirror,
and diffusing an odor of scent, stumbled against them on the
stairs, and stood aside, evidently admiring Kitty, whom he did
not know. A beardless youth, one of those society youths whom
the old Prince Shtcherbatsky called "young bucks," in an
exceedingly open waistcoat, straightening his white tie as he
went, bowed to them, and after running by, came back to ask Kitty
for a quadrille. As the first quadrille had already been given
to Vronsky, she had to promise this youth the second. An
officer, buttoning his glove, stood aside in the doorway, and
stroking his mustache, admired rosy Kitty.

Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for
the ball had cost Kitty great trouble and consideration, at this
moment she walked into the ballroom in her elaborate tulle dress
over a pink slip as easily and simply as though all the rosettes
and lace, all the minute details of her attire, had not cost her
or her family a moment's attention, as though she had been born
in that tulle and lace, with her hair done up high on her head,
and a rose and two leaves on the top of it.

When, just before entering the ballroom, the princess, her
mother, tried to turn right side out of the ribbon of her sash,
Kitty had drawn back a little. She felt that everything must be
right of itself, and graceful, and nothing could need setting
straight.

It was one of Kitty's best days. Her dress was not
uncomfortable anywhere; her lace berthe did not droop anywhere;
her rosettes were not crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers
with high, hollowed-out heels did not pinch, but gladdened her
feet; and the thick rolls of fair chignon kept up on her head as
if they were her own hair. All the three buttons buttoned up
without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand without
concealing its lines. The black velvet of her locket nestled
with special softness round her neck. That velvet was delicious;
at home, looking at her neck in the looking glass, Kitty had felt
that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might be
a doubt, but the velvet was delicious. Kitty smiled here too, at
the ball, when she glanced at it