She had scarcely jumped from the stairs into the interlocking airstreams and reached the throng of ladies, all tulle, ribbons, lace, and flowers, all of the feminine trim gently oscillating in the carefully controlled winds, when she was asked for the next waltz, and asked by the best partner, the first star in the hierarchy of the ballroom, a renowned director of dances, a married man, handsome and well-built, Yegorushka Korsunsky. Without even asking her if she cared to dance, Korsunsky put out his arm to encircle her slender waist, bent deeply at the waist, and at the sound of the next air-chime launched them up together. They ascended rapidly on three subsequent puffs, Kitty’s dress billowing beneath her, leaving below them the throngs of ladies and elegant gentlemen angling for partners.
Three regiments of 77s stood guard at the edges of the room, their dense metal frames resolutely, reassuringly earthbound, their heads tirelessly rotating, even as the supernatant revelry proceeded all around, beside, and above them. Their Caretaker in gold uniform and epaulets kept his vigilant, protective gaze upon the crowd.
“How nice you’ve come in good time,” Korsunsky said to Kitty, as they dropped a foot and then shot giddily back up on the three-beat. “Such a bad habit to be late.” Bending her left hand, she laid it on his shoulder, and her little feet in their pink slippers followed his as he led them through a tricky maneuver, moving over and up, over and up, catching each new burst of air at just the right moment, waltzing diagonally toward the ceiling.
“It’s a rest to waltz with you,” he said to her, as they glided through the waltz. “It’s exquisite-such lightness, precision.” He said to her the same thing he said to almost all his partners whom he knew well.
She smiled at his praise, and continued to look down at the room below them. She was not like a girl at her first float, for whom the tops of all the heads melt into one vision of fairyland. And she was not a girl who had gone the stale round of floats till every pate was familiar and tiresome. But she was in the middle stage between these two; she was excited, and at the same time she had sufficient self-possession to be able to observe.
Kitty turned her attention to her fellow dancers, as the music slowed from triple time to a common four-four and the air slowed with it, transforming from the swift, giddy puff-puff-puff of waltzfloating to a controlled series of magisterial gusts. Doing a slow pirouette in the air was the beauty Lidi, Korsunsky’s wife; swanning past, nearly horizontal, was the lady of the house; dancing upside down, catching the air with his rear end and kicking his legs in a comical bicycling motion, was old Krivin, always to be found where the best people were. Down below, in the seating area, Kitty caught sight of Stiva, and beside him the exquisite figure and head of Anna, with Android Karenina beside her, glowing not lilac, but purest black.
And he was here too, silver uniform gleaming in the candlelight, his hot-whip crackling wickedly where it encircled his upper thigh. Kitty had not seen him since the evening she refused Levin. With her longsighted eyes, she knew him at once, and was even aware that he was looking at her.
“Where shall I alight you?” said Korsunsky, a little out of breath, as the air song came to the end and the airstreams began to weaken in force, bringing the dancers closer to the floor with each subsequent gust.
“Madame Karenina’s here, I think… take me to her.”
“Wherever you command.”
And Korsunsky began waltzing their measured way, downward and diagonally, straight toward the group in the left corner, continually saying, “Pardon, Mesdames, pardon, pardon, Mesdames” and steering his course through the sea of lace, tulle, and ribbon.
“This is one of my most faithful supporters,” said Korsunsky, bowing to Anna Arkadyevna, whom he had not yet seen, and exchanging polite nods with Android Karenina. “Anna Arkadyevna, a waltz?” he said, bending down to her.
“I don’t dance when it’s possible not to dance,” she said.
“But tonight it’s impossible,” answered Korsunsky.
At that instant Vronsky came up.
“Well, since it’s impossible tonight, let us start,” she said, not noticing Vronsky’s bow, and she hastily put her hand on Korsunsky’s shoulder as the air-chime sounded for the next waltz, the steady huffing of the hidden pipes began anew, and he launched them into the air.
“What is she vexed with him about?” thought Kitty, discerning that Anna had intentionally not responded to Vronsky’s bow. Vronsky went up to Kitty reminding her of the first quadrille, and expressing his regret that he had not seen her all this time. Kitty gazed in admiration at Anna waltzing, and listened to him. She expected him to ask her for a waltz, but he did not, and she glanced wonderingly at him. Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her own, and long afterward-for several years after-that look, full of love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an agony of shame.
He flushed slightly, and hurriedly asked her to waltz, but they had only just ascended to the first tier when a whistle blew, the music stopped, the air jets cut off abruptly, and everybody tumbled toward the ground.
Kitty cried out as she fell, but the floor of the ballroom was of course lined with plush mats of eiderdown, and so the greatest risk was not physical injury but embarrassment, which in fact was the result. As the erstwhile floaters, some laughing, some calling out in confusion and discomposure, struggled to their feet, Kitty blushed to find herself entangled with Count Vronsky, who calmly pulled them both upright.
Korsunsky, who had landed on top of Anna Karenina, assumed the drop was triggered accidentally, and was among those taking the incident with good-natured merriment, until, in the next moment, he and Anna were encircled by four 77s. The Caretaker who controlled them-and who had ordered the drop-was striding manfully toward them, dragging behind him a fat, bright orange Class III who was twittering confusedly.
“Your Excellency,” began this Caretaker, who wore a thin black mustache and a smirk of self-satisfaction. “Can you confirm the provenance of this machine?”
“Why, indeed,” replied Korsunsky readily, pulling away from Anna and to the side of his beloved-companion. “This is my Class III, Portcullis. Is there some sort of difficulty?”
Kitty watched Korsunsky’s eyes darting rapidly from his robot to the suspicious and hawk-like gaze of the Caretaker to the strong, pincer-like end-effectors of the 77s.
“Pardon, your Excellency. I did not inquire as to the machine’s name or master. I asked if you can vouch for its origins.”
The Caretaker’s tone was unmistakably hardening. Looking away from Korsunsky, Kitty’s gaze fell on Anna, who had not set Android Karenina to glow in lilac, as Kitty had so urgently wished, but instead to gently silhouette her, with the subtlest overtones of velvet, brilliantly complementing Anna’s throat and shoulders, which looked as though carved in old ivory, and her rounded arms, with tiny, slender wrists. On Anna’s head, among her black hair-her own, with no false additions-was a little wreath of pansies, and a bouquet of the same in the black ribbon of her sash among white lace. Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable were the little willful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about her neck and temples. Round her well-cut, strong neck was a thread of pearls.