ed lost in fog in Kitty's soul.
Nothing but the stern discipline of her bringing-up supported her
and forced her to do what was expected of her, that is, to dance,
to answer questions, to talk, even to smile. But before the
mazurka, when they were beginning to rearrange the chairs and a
few couples moved out of the smaller rooms into the big room, a
moment of despair and horror came for Kitty. She had refused
five partners, and now she was not dancing the mazurka. She had
not even a hope of being asked for it, because she was so
successful in society that the idea would never occur to anyone
that she had remained disengaged till now. She would have to
tell her mother she felt ill and go home, but she had not the
strength to do this. She felt crushed. She went to the furthest
end of the little drawing room and sank into a low chair. Her
light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud about her slender
waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was
lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her
fan, and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face. But
while she looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass,
and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her
heart ached with a horrible despair.

"But perhaps I am wrong, perhaps it was not so?" And again she
recalled all she had seen.

"Kitty, what is it?" said Countess Nordston, stepping noiselessly
over the carpet towards her. "I don't understand it."

Kitty's lower lip began to quiver; she got up quickly.

"Kitty, you're not dancing the mazurka?"

"No, no," said Kitty in a voice shaking with tears.

"He asked her for the mazurka before me," said Countess Nordston,
knowing Kitty would understand who were "he" and "her." "She
said: 'Why, aren't you going to dance it with Princess
Shtcherbatskaya?'"

"Oh, I don't care!" answered Kitty.

No one but she herself understood her position; no one knew that
she had just refused the man whom perhaps she loved, and refused
him because she had put her faith in another.

Countess Nordston found Korsunsky, with whom she was to dance the
mazurka, and told him to ask Kitty.

Kitty danced in the first couple, and luckily for her she had not
to talk, because Korsunsky was all the time running about
directing the figure. Vronsky and Anna sat almost opposite her.
She saw them with her long-sighted eyes, and saw them, too, close
by, when they met in the figures,