Dancing Into Love at the Ball — War and Peace

Iogel's are the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So say the mothers watching newly learned steps, the youths and maidens who dance till they drop, and the grown-up young people who come with an air of condescension and find them delightful. That year two marriages have come of these balls: the pretty young Princesses Gorchakóv met suitors there and further increased the fame. What distinguishes them is the absence of host or hostess and the presence of good-natured Iogel, flying about like a feather, bowing according to the rules of his art as he collects tickets. Only those come who wish to dance and amuse themselves as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all are, or seem to be, pretty, so rapturous are their smiles and so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the best pupils, of whom Natásha, exceptionally graceful, is first, even dance the pas de châle, but at this last ball only the écossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, just coming into fashion, are danced. Iogel has taken a ballroom in Bezúkhov's house, and everyone says the ball is a great success. The Rostóv girls are among the prettiest. That evening Sónya, proud of Dólokhov's proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, twirls so that the maid can hardly plait her hair, transparently radiant. Natásha is no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real ball. Both wear white muslin with pink ribbons.

Natásha falls in love the moment she enters, not with anyone in particular but with everyone: whichever person she looks at, she is in love with for that moment. "Oh, how delightful it is!" she keeps saying to Sónya. Nicholas and Denísov walk up and down with kindly patronage. "How sweet she is, she will be a weal beauty! And how she dances! What gwace!" Denísov says of Countess Natásha, then testily, when asked twice, "About your sister." Little Iogel comes up: Nicholas was one of his best pupils, he must dance, look how many charming young ladies. He turns with the same request to Denísov, also a former pupil. "No, I'll be a wallflower. Don't you wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?" Iogel hastens: only inattentive, but talent, oh yes. The band strikes up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas cannot refuse and asks Sónya. Denísov sits by the old ladies, leaning on his saber, beating time, telling them something funny, watching Iogel fly noiselessly with Natásha, his pride and best pupil, though shy, carefully executing her steps. Denísov does not take his eyes off her; the way he beats time with the saber shows that if he is not dancing it is because he will not, not because he cannot. In the middle of a figure he beckons to Rostóv: this is not at all the thing, what sort of Polish mazurka is this? But she does dance splendidly.

Knowing Denísov's reputation even in Poland for the masterly mazurka, Nicholas tells Natásha to choose him: a real dancer, a wonder. When her turn comes she trips rapidly in little shoes trimmed with bows to the corner where Denísov sits. Everybody is looking. Nicholas sees him refusing though he smiles delightedly, and runs up. "Please, Vasíli Dmítrich, do come!" "Oh no, let me off, Countess." "Now then, Váska." "They coax me as if I were Váska the cat!" "I'll sing for you a whole evening," Natásha says. "Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!" He unhooks his saber, clasps her hand, throws back his head, and waits for the beat. Only on horseback and in the mazurka is his short stature not noticeable; he looks the fine fellow he feels himself to be. At the right beat he stamps, bounds from the floor like a ball, and flies round the room with her, glides on one foot, seems about to dash into the chairs, stops short on his heels, whirls, strikes heel against heel, spins her now with the left hand, now with the right, falls on one knee, jumps up, and at last, smartly whirling her in front of her chair, draws up with a click of spurs and bows. Natásha does not even curtsy. She fixes her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she did not recognise him. "What does this mean?" Though Iogel will not acknowledge this as the real mazurka, everyone is delighted; he is asked again and again, and the old men talk smilingly of Poland and the good old days. Denísov, flushed, mopping himself with his handkerchief, sits down by Natásha and does not leave her for the rest of the evening.