Meanwhile winter came on. Long before Christmas there was an
announcement in the local papers that the usual winter ball would
take place on the twenty-ninth of December in the Hall of Nobility.
Every evening after cards Modest Alexeitch was excitedly whispering
with his colleagues' wives and glancing at Anna, and then paced up
and down the room for a long while, thinking. At last, late one
evening, he stood still, facing Anna, and said:
"You ought to get yourself a ball dress. Do you understand? Only
please consult Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna."
And he gave her a hundred roubles. She took the money, but she did
not consult any one when she ordered the ball dress; she spoke to
no one but her father, and tried to imagine how her mother would
have dressed for a ball. Her mother had always dressed in the latest
fashion and had always taken trouble over Anna, dressing her elegantly
like a doll, and had taught her to speak French and dance the mazurka
superbly (she had been a governess for five years before her
marriage). Like her mother, Anna could make a new dress out of an
old one, clean gloves with benzine, hire jewels; and, like her
mother, she knew how to screw up her eyes, lisp, assume graceful
attitudes, fly into raptures when necessary, and throw a mournful
and enigmatic look into her eyes. And from her father she had
inherited the dark colour of her hair and eyes, her highly-strung
nerves, and the habit of always making herself look her best.
When, half an hour before setting off for the ball, Modest Alexeitch
went into her room without his coat on, to put his order round his
neck before her pier-glass, dazzled by her beauty and the splendour
of her fresh, ethereal dress, he combed his whiskers complacently
and said:
"So that's what my wife can look like . . . so that's what you can
look like! Anyuta!" he went on, dropping into a tone of solemnity,
"I have made your fortune, and now I beg you to do something for
mine. I beg you to get introduced to the wife of His Excellency!
For God's sake, do! Through her I may get the post of senior reporting
clerk!"
They went to the ball. They reached the Hall of Nobility, the
entrance with the hall porter. They came to the vestibule with the
hat-stands, the fur coats; footmen scurrying about, and ladies with
low necks putting up their fans to screen themselves from the
draughts. There was a smell of gas and of soldiers. When Anna,
walking upstairs on her husband's arm, heard the music and saw
herself full length in the looking-glass in the full glow of the
lights, there was a rush of joy in her heart, and she felt the same
presentiment of happiness as in the moonlight at the station. She
walked in proudly, confidently, for the first time feeling herself
not a girl but a lady, and unconsciously imitating her mother in
her walk and in her manner. And for the first time in her life she
felt rich and free. Even her husband's presence did not oppress
her, for as she crossed the threshold of the hall she had guessed
instinctively that the proximity of an old husband did not detract
from her in the least, but, on the contrary, gave her that shade
of piquant mystery that is so attractive to men. The orchestra was
already playing and the dances had begun. After their flat Anna was
overwhelmed by the lights, the bright colours, the music, the noise,
and looking round the room, thought, "Oh, how lovely!" She at once
distinguished in the crowd all her acquaintances, every one she had
met before at parties or on picnics--all the officers, the teachers,
the lawyers, the officials, the landowners, His Excellency, Artynov,
and the ladies of the highest standing, dressed up and very
_décollettées_, handsome and ugly, who had already taken up their
positions in the stalls and pavilions of the charity bazaar, to
begin selling things for the benefit of the poor. A huge officer
in epaulettes--she had been introduced to him in Staro-Kievsky
Street when she was a schoolgirl, but now she could not remember
his name--seemed to spring from out of the ground, begging her
for a waltz, and she flew away from her husband, feeling as though
she were floating away in a sailing-boat in a violent storm, while
her husband was left far away on the shore. She danced passionately,
with fervour, a waltz, then a polka and a quadrille, being snatched
by one partner as soon as she was left by another, dizzy with music
and the noise, mixing Russian with French, lisping, laughing, and
with no thought of her husband or anything else. She excited great
admiration among the men--that was evident, and indeed it could
not have been otherwise; she was breathless with excitement, felt
thirsty, and convulsively clutched her fan. Pyotr Leontyitch, her
father, in a crumpled dress-coat that smelt of benzine, came up to
her, offering her a plate of pink ice.
"You are enchanting this evening," he said, looking at her rapturously,
"and I have never so much regretted that you were in such a hurry
to get married. . . . What was it for? I know you did it for our
sake, but . . ." With a shaking hand he drew out a roll of notes
and said: "I got the money for my lessons today, and can pay your
husband what I owe him."
She put the plate back into his hand, and was pounced upon by some
one and borne off to a distance. She caught a glimpse over her
partner's shoulder of her father gliding over the floor, putting
his arm round a lady and whirling down the ball-room with her.
"How sweet he is when he is sober!" she thought.
She danced the mazurka with the same huge officer; he moved gravely,
as heavily as a dead carcase in a uniform, twitched his shoulders
and his chest, stamped his feet very languidly--he felt fearfully
disinclined to dance. She fluttered round him, provoking him by her
beauty, her bare neck; her eyes glowed defiantly, her movements
were passionate, while he became more and more indifferent, and
held out his hands to her as graciously as a king.
"Bravo, bravo!" said people watching them.
But little by little the huge officer, too, broke out; he grew
lively, excited, and, overcome by her fascination, was carried away
and danced lightly, youthfully, while she merely moved her shoulders
and looked slyly at him as though she were now the queen and he
were her slave; and at that moment it seemed to her that the whole
room was looking at them, and that everybody was thrilled and envied
them. The huge officer had hardly had time to thank her for the
dance, when the crowd suddenly parted and the men drew themselves
up in a strange way, with their hands at their sides.
His Excellency, with two stars on his dress-coat, was walking up
to her. Yes, His Excellency was walking straight towards her, for
he was staring directly at her with a sugary smile, while he licked
his lips as he always did when he saw a pretty woman.
"Delighted, delighted . . ." he began. "I shall order your husband
to be clapped in a lock-up for keeping such a treasure hidden from
us till now. I've come to you with a message from my wife," he went
on, offering her his arm. "You must help us. . . . M-m-yes. . . .
We ought to give you the prize for beauty as they do in America
. . . . M-m-yes. . . . The Americans. . . . My wife is expecting you
impatiently."
He led her to a stall and presented her to a middle-aged lady, the
lower part of whose face was disproportionately large, so that she
looked as though she were holding a big stone in her mouth.
"You must help us," she said through her nose in a sing-song voice.
"All the pretty women are working for our charity bazaar, and you
are the only one enjoying yourself. Why won't you help us?"
She went away, and Anna took her place by the cups and the silver
samovar. She was soon doing a lively trade. Anna asked no less than
a rouble for a cup of tea, and made the huge officer drink three
cups. Artynov, the rich man with prominent eyes, who suffered from
asthma, came up, too; he was not dressed in the strange costume in
which Anna had seen him in the summer at the station, but wore a
dress-coat like every one else. Keeping his eyes fixed on Anna, he
drank a glass of champagne and paid a hundred roubles for it, then
drank some tea and gave another hundred--all this without saying
a word, as he was short of breath through asthma. . . . Anna invited
purchasers and got money out of them, firmly convinced by now that
her smiles and glances could not fail to afford these people great
pleasure. She realized now that she was created exclusively for
this noisy, brilliant, laughing life, with its music, its dancers,
its adorers, and her old terror of a force that was sweeping down
upon her and menacing to crush her seemed to her ridiculous: she
was afraid of no one now, and only regretted that her mother could
not be there to rejoice at her success.
Pyotr Leontyitch, pale by now but still steady on his legs, came
up to the stall and asked for a glass of brandy. Anna turned crimson,
expecting him to say something inappropriate (she was already ashamed
of having such a poor and ordinary father); but he emptied his
glass, took ten roubles out of his roll of notes, flung it down,
and walked away with dignity without uttering a word. A little later
she saw him dancing in the grand chain, and by now he was staggering
and kept shouting something, to the great confusion of his partner;
and Anna remembered how at the ball three years before he had
staggered and shouted in the same way, and it had ended in the
police-sergeant's taking him home to bed, and next day the director
had threatened to dismiss him from his post. How inappropriate that
memory was!
When the samovars were put out in the stalls and the exhausted
ladies handed over their takings to the middle-aged lady with the
stone in her mouth, Artynov took Anna on his arm to the hall where
supper was served to all who had assisted at the bazaar. There were
some twenty people at supper, not more, but it was very noisy. His
Excellency proposed a toast:
"In this magnificent dining-room it will be appropriate to drink
to the success of the cheap dining-rooms, which are the object of
today's bazaar."
The brigadier-general proposed the toast: "To the power by which
even the artillery is vanquished," and all the company clinked
glasses with the ladies. It was very, very gay.
When Anna was escorted home it was daylight and the cooks were going
to market. Joyful, intoxicated, full of new sensations, exhausted,
she undressed, dropped into bed, and at once fell asleep. . . .
It was past one in the afternoon when the servant waked her and
announced that M. Artynov had called. She dressed quickly and went
down into the drawing-room. Soon after Artynov, His Excellency
called to thank her for her assistance in the bazaar. With a sugary
smile, chewing his lips, he kissed her hand, and asking her permission
to come again, took his leave, while she remained standing in the
middle of the drawing-room, amazed, enchanted, unable to believe
that this change in her life, this marvellous change, had taken
place so quickly; and at that moment Modest Alexeitch walked in
. . . and he, too, stood before her now with the same ingratiating,
sugary, cringingly respectful expression which she was accustomed
to see on his face in the presence of the great and powerful; and
with rapture, with indignation, with contempt, convinced that no
harm would come to her from it, she said, articulating distinctly
each word:
"Be off, you blockhead!"
From this time forward Anna never had one day free, as she was
always taking part in picnics, expeditions, performances. She
returned home every day after midnight, and went to bed on the floor
in the drawing-room, and afterwards used to tell every one, touchingly,
how she slept under flowers. She needed a very great deal of money,
but she was no longer afraid of Modest Alexeitch, and spent his
money as though it were her own; and she did not ask, did not demand
it, simply sent him in the bills. "Give bearer two hundred roubles,"
or "Pay one hundred roubles at once."
At Easter Modest Alexeitch received the Anna of the second grade.
When he went to offer his thanks, His Excellency put aside the paper
he was reading and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"So now you have three Annas," he said, scrutinizing his white hands
and pink nails--"one on your buttonhole and two on your neck."
Modest Alexeitch put two fingers to his lips as a precaution against
laughing too loud and said:
"Now I have only to look forward to the arrival of a little Vladimir.
I make bold to beg your Excellency to stand godfather."
He was alluding to Vladimir of the fourth grade, and was already
imagining how he would tell everywhere the story of this pun, so
happy in its readiness and audacity, and he wanted to say something
equally happy, but His Excellency was buried again in his newspaper,
and merely gave him a nod.
And Anna went on driving about with three horses, going out hunting
with Artynov, playing in one-act dramas, going out to supper, and
was more and more rarely with her own family; they dined now alone.
Pyotr Leontyitch was drinking more heavily than ever; there was no
money, and the harmonium had been sold long ago for debt. The boys
did not let him go out alone in the street now, but looked after
him for fear he might fall down; and whenever they met Anna driving
in Staro-Kievsky Street with a pair of horses and Artynov on the
box instead of a coachman, Pyotr Leontyitch took off his top-hat,
and was about to shout to her, but Petya and Andrusha took him by
the arm, and said imploringly:
"You mustn't, father. Hush, father!"