He had danced also with others,—with all the pretty women, and there were many pretty women there.
But the little widow, Zavalshevsky's sister, pleased the count more than all the rest; with her he danced a quadrille and a schottische and a mazurka.
At first, when they took their places for the quadrille, he overwhelmed her with compliments, comparing her to Venus and Diana, and to a rosebush, and to some other flower besides.
To all these amenities the little widow only bent her white neck, modestly dropped her eyes, and, looking at her white muslin dress, changed her fan from one hand to the other.
When, at last, she said, "This is too much, count; you are jesting," etc., her voice, which was rather guttural, betrayed such naïve simplicity of heart and amusing naturalness that the count, as he looked at her, actually compared her, not to a flower or to a rosebush, but to some kind of a pinkish-white wild-flower, exuberant and odorless, growing alone on a virgin snow-drift in some far, far-distant land.
Such a strange impression was made upon the count by this union of naïveté and unconventionality together with fresh beauty, that several times, in the pauses of the conversation, when he looked silently into her eyes or contemplated the loveliness of her arms and neck, the desire came over him with such vehemence to take her into his arms and kiss her again and again, that he was really obliged to restrain himself.
The little widow was quite satisfied with the impression which she perceived that she had made; but there was something in the count's behavior that began to disquiet her, and fill her with apprehensions, though the young hussar was not only flatteringly amiable, but even, to an extravagant degree, deferential in his treatment of her.
He ran to get orgeat for her, picked up her handkerchief, snatched a chair from the hands of a scrofulous young proprietor, who was also anxious to pay her attention, and who was not quick enough. But perceiving that these assiduities, which were fashionable at that period, had little effect in making the lady well-disposed, he began to amuse her by telling her ridiculous anecdotes: he assured her that he was ready at a moment's notice to stand on his head, or to crow like a cock, or to jump out of the window, or to fling himself into a hole in the ice.
This procedure was a brilliant success: the little widow became very gay; she rippled with laughter, displaying her marvellous white teeth, and became entirely satisfied with her cavalier. The count each moment grew more and more enchanted with her, so that at the end of the quadrille he was really in love with her.
After the quadrille, when she was approached by her former admirer, a young man of eighteen, the son of a very rich proprietor, the same scrofulous young man from whom Turbin had snatched away the chair, she received him with perfect coolness, and not one-tenth part of the constraint was noticeable in her which she felt when she was with the count.