Short Fiction, Anton Chekhov [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

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 hatstands, 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, everyone 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 someone 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 ballroom 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 lockup for keeping such a treasure hidden from us till now. I’ve come to you with a message from my