and then a quadrille with passionate eagerness, passing from one partner to another, dizzy with the music and noise, mixing Russian with French, laughing, lisping, never thinking about her husband, never thinking at all. She was a great success among the men—that was self-evident, and it could not have been otherwise: she was breathless with excitement and squeezed her fan convulsively in her hand, and wanted something to drink. Her father, Pyotr Leontyich, wearing a crumpled dress coat which smelled of benzine, came up to her and offered her a plate of pink ice cream.
“You are so enchanting this evening,” he said, gazing at her in rapture. “Never have I so deeply regretted that you were in a hurry to get married. Why did you do it? Oh, I know you did it for us, but …” With trembling hands he drew out a roll of banknotes and said: “Today I got the money they owed me for my lessons. I can pay back the debt I owe your husband.”
She thrust the plate back into his hands, and was snatched away by someone who carried her far into the distance. Over her partner’s shoulders she caught a glimpse of her father gliding over the parquet floor, putting his arm around a lady, and whirling her across the ballroom.
“How sweet he is when he is sober,” she thought.
She danced the mazurka with the same huge officer, who moved gravely and heavily, a carcass in uniform, twitching his shoulders and chest, languidly stamping his feet—he felt fearfully disinclined to dance—but she fluttered round him, provoking him with her beauty, with her bare neck; her eyes were on fire, and her movements were passionate. The officer, however, grew increasingly indifferent, holding out his hands to her graciously, like a king.
“Bravo, bravo!” people were shouting at them.
Little by little the huge officer caught the excitement. He stirred into life, became intoxicated by the dance, and yielded to her fascination. Carried away, he danced lightly, youthfully, while she merely moved her shoulders and gazed at him slyly, as though she were a queen and he were her slave. At that moment it seemed to her that the whole ballroom was watching them, and that all those people were thrilled and envious of them. The huge officer had scarcely thanked her for the dance when the crowd suddenly parted and the men drew themselves up in an odd way, with their hands at their sides. His Excellency, with two stars on his dress coat, came walking up to her. Yes, His Excellency was making his way straight up to her and gazing straight into her eyes and smiling in the sweetest way, licking his lips as he always did when he saw a pretty woman.
“Delighted, delighted,” he began. “I shall have to put your husband in the guardhouse for keeping such a treasure hidden from me. I have come to you on an errand from my wife,” he went on, offering his arm. “Really you must help me! M-m-yes. We should give you a prize for beauty, as they do in America. M-m-m-yes.… The Americans.… My wife is most anxious to meet you.…”
He led her to a booth and presented her to an elderly lady, the lower part of whose face was disproportionately large, so that she looked as though she were holding an enormous stone in her mouth.
“Oh, you must help me!” the elderly lady said through her nose in a singsong voice. “All our pretty women are working for the charity bazaar, and you are having a fine time all by yourself. Now why won’t you help us?”
She went away, and Anna took her place beside the cups and the silver samovar. She was soon doing a tremendous trade in tea. She charged no less than a ruble for a cup of tea, and she made the huge officer drink three cups in a row. Artynov, the very rich and short-winded man with the bulging eyes, came up too. He was no longer dressed in the costume he wore when Anna saw him at the station during the summer: now he wore a dress coat like everyone else. Without looking away from Anna, he drank a glass of champagne and paid a hundred rubles for it, and then he drank a cup of tea and gave her another hundred—all this in silence, because of his asthma. Anna solicited customers and got money from them. She was now firmly convinced that her smiles and glances gave these people only the greatest pleasure. She saw now that she had been created exclusively for this noisy, glittering existence, filled with music, laughter, dancing, admirers, and her former fear of a power swooping down on her and threatening to crush her now seemed ridiculous: she was afraid of no one, and only sorry her mother was not there to enjoy her success.
Pyotr Leontyich, who had grown pale but still held himself well, came to her booth and demanded a glass of brandy. Anna turned crimson, expecting him to say something silly—she was already ashamed of having such a poor and undistinguished father—but he drank down the brandy, removed ten rubles from his roll of banknotes, and walked away with great dignity, in perfect silence. A little while later she saw him dancing in
When the samovars in the booths had grown cold and the weary charity workers had handed their takings to the lady with the stone in her mouth, Artynov took Anna by the arm and led her away to the hall where supper was served to all who had been working for the charity bazaar. There were twenty people at the supper, no more, and they were very noisy. His Excellency proposed a toast, saying: “There is no finer place than this magnificent dining room for drinking a toast to the success of our charity kitchens, which are of course the object of today’s bazaar.” And a brigadier general proposed a toast to “the force which overcomes even the artillery,” and thereupon all the men clinked glasses with the ladies. It was very, very gay!
When Anna was escorted home, it was already daylight and the cooks were on their way to market. Elated, intoxicated, full of new sensations and completely exhausted, she undressed, fell on the bed, and immediately fell asleep.
Sometime after one o’clock in the afternoon the maid woke her and announced that Mr. Artynov had come to call on her. She dressed hurriedly and went into the drawing room. Soon after Artynov had made his departure His Excellency came to thank her for all the help she had given at the charity bazaar. With his sugary smile, running his tongue over his lips, he kissed her hand and begged permission to return. When he took leave of her, she was standing in the middle of the drawing room, amazed, enchanted, incapable of believing that this change, this marvelous change, had taken place in her life so quickly. And at that precise moment Modest Alexeich walked in.… He stood there in front of her with a sweet, ingratiating, servile expression—the same expression which she was accustomed to see on his face whenever he was in the presence of the illustrious and powerful; and with rapture, with indignation and contempt, in the full confidence that no harm could befall her, she said, articulating each word distinctly: “Get out, you blockhead!”
After that Anna never spent a single day alone. She was continually going to picnics, excursions, and theatricals. Every day she came home in the early hours of the morning and lay down on the floor of the drawing room, and afterwards she told everyone touchingly how she had slept under the flowers. She needed a lot of money. No longer afraid of Modest Alexeich, she spent his money as though it were her own, and she did not ask or demand it, she simply sent him the bills or scribbled notes saying: “Give bearer 200 rubles,” or else “Pay 100 rubles without delay.”
At Easter, Modest Alexeich received the Order of St. Anna, second class. When he went to offer thanks, His Excellency laid aside his newspaper and settled deep in the armchair.
