ssion on
Natasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly
brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.

"I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy little girl
seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she
raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second couple
to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his
day and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin
dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of
herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare
arms and neck were not beautiful--compared to Helene's her shoulders
looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Helene seemed, as it were,
hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned
her person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first time,
who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this
was absolutely necessary.

Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as
possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed
to him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,
caused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha
because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first
pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that
slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling
so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he
felt himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood
breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.

CHAPTER XVII

After Prince Andrew, Boris came up to ask Natasha for a dance, and then
the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men,
so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to
Sonya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw
nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice
that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how
particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so
and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Helene had great
success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she
did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because
the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of th