Chapter 23 — Anna Karenina

Kitty still expects the mazurka with Vronsky. She refused five partners, sure he would ask as at past balls. The quadrille with him is idle talk about the Korsunskys and a sting when he asks if Levin is here and says he likes him. She saves her hope for the mazurka, where everything must be decided.

Then, dancing vis-a-vis with Vronsky and Anna in the last quadrille, Kitty reads their faces like a mirror: Anna's intoxication with one man's adoration, Vronsky's humbled look each time he turns to her, as though he would fall at her feet. Before the mazurka he has already asked Anna; Countess Nordston tells Kitty the exchange. Kitty says she does not care, but no one else knows she refused Levin for faith in Vronsky.

Collapse follows: she sits fanning herself, near tears, until Nordston sends Korsunsky. During the mazurka Kitty watches them alone in the crowded room, sees Vronsky's bewildered submission, and finds Anna fascinating and cruel. Anna summons her into a figure, smiles, then turns away at Kitty's despair. Anna refuses supper and leaves for Petersburg tomorrow; Vronsky's bold question about her departure lights her eyes with irrepressible brilliance. Kitty's enchanted ball ends in fog.