own carriage, and I in a wretched little droshky, hired for an immense
sum for this solemn occasion. I am not going to describe that ball.
Everything about it was just as it always is. There was a band, with
trumpets extraordinarily out of tune, in the gallery; there were
country gentlemen, greatly flustered, with their inevitable families,
mauve ices, viscous lemonade; servants in boots trodden down at heel
and knitted cotton gloves; provincial lions with spasmodically
contorted faces, and so on and so on. And all this little world was
revolving round its sun--round the prince. Lost in the crowd,
unnoticed even by the young ladies of eight-and-forty, with red pimples
on their brows and blue flowers on the top of their heads, I stared
incessantly, first at the prince, then at Liza. She was very charmingly
dressed and very pretty that evening. They only twice danced together
(it is true, he danced the mazurka with her); but it seemed, to me at
least, that there was a sort of secret, continuous communication
between them. Even while not looking at her, while not speaking to her,
he was still, as it were, addressing her, and her alone. He was
handsome and brilliant and charming with other people--for her sake
only. She was apparently conscious that she was the queen of the ball,
and that she was loved. Her face at once beamed with childlike delight
and innocent pride, and was suddenly illuminated by another, deeper
feeling. Happiness radiated from her. I observed all this.... It was
not the first time I had watched them.... At first this wounded me
intensely; afterwards it, as it were, touched me; but, finally, it
infuriated me. I suddenly felt extraordinarily wrathful, and, I
remember, was extraordinarily delighted at this new sensation, and even
conceived a certain respect for myself. 'We'll show them we're not
crushed yet,' I said to myself. When the first inviting notes of the
mazurka sounded, I looked about me with composure, and with a cool and
easy air approached a long-faced young lady with a red and shiny nose,