Yes, the Fanes' ball is a splendid ball, one of the most beautiful balls of the season, and fulfils every one's expectations. Not one of the artistic effects that puzzle newspaper-reporters and delight the public is lacking,--neither fountains of eau-de-cologne, nor tables of flowers upon which blocks of ice gleam from among nodding ferns, nor mirrors and chandeliers hung with wreaths of roses, nor the legendary grape-vine with colossal grapes. The crown of all, however, is the conservatory, in which, among orange-trees and magnolias in full bloom, gleam mandarin-trees full of bright golden fruit. There are lovely, secluded nooks in this Paradise, where has been conjured up in the unfriendly Northern winter all the luxuriance of Southern vegetation. Large mirrors here and there prevent what might else be the monotony of the scene.
The company is rather mixed. It almost produces the impression of the appearance at a first-class theatre of a troop of provincial actors, with here and there a couple of stars,--stars who scarcely condescend to play their parts. Most of the guests do not recognize the host; and those who suspect his presence in the serious little man in a huge white tie and with a bald head, whom they took at first for the master of ceremonies, avoid him. His entire occupation consists in gliding about with an unhappy face in the darkest corners, now and then timidly requesting some one of the guests to look at his last Meissonier. When the guest complies with the request and accompanies him to view the Meissonier, Mr. Fane always replies to the praise accorded to the picture in the same words: "I paid three hundred thousand francs for it. Do you think Meissoniers will increase in value?"
The hostess is more imposing in appearance than her bald-headed spouse. Her gown comes from Felix, and is trimmed with sunflowers as big as dinner-plates,--which has a comical effect. Thérèse Rohritz shakes her head, and whispers to a friend, "How that good Mrs. Fane must have offended Felix, to induce him to take such a cruel revenge!" But except for her gown, and the fact that she cannot finish a single sentence without introducing the name of some duke or duchess, there is nothing particularly ridiculous about her.
Yet, criticise the entertainment and its authors as you may, one and all must confess that rarely has there been such an opportunity to admire so great a number of beautiful women, and that the most beautiful of all, the queen of the evening, is the Princess Oblonsky. Anywhere else it would excite surprise to find her among so many women of unblemished reputation; but it is no greater wonder to meet her here than at a public ball. Anywhere else people would probably stand aloof from her; here they approach her curiously, as they would some theatric star whom they might meet at a picnic in an inn ball-room.
Perhaps her beauty would not be so completely victorious over that of her sister women were she not the only guest who has bestowed great pains on her toilette. All the other feminine guests who make any pretensions to distinction seem to have entered into an agreement to be as shabby as possible. As it would be hopeless to attempt to rival the Fane millions, they choose at least to prove that they despise them.
One of the shabbiest and most rumpled among many dowdy gowns is that worn by Thérèse Rohritz, who, pretty woman as she is, looks down with evident satisfaction upon her faded crêpe de Chine draperies, remarking, with a laugh, that she had almost danced it off last summer at the balls at the casino at Trouville.
Her husband is not quite pleased with such evident neglect of her dress on his wife's part, nor does he at all admire Thérèse's careless way of looking about her through her eye-glass and laughing and criticising. He must always be too good an Austrian to be reconciled to what is called chic in Paris. There is the same difference between his Austrian arrogance and Parisian arrogance that there is between pride and impertinence. He thinks it all right to hold aloof from a parvenu, to avoid his house and his acquaintance; but to go to the house of the parvenu, to be entertained in his apartments, to eat his ices and drink his champagne, to pluck the flowers from his walls, and in return to ignore himself and to ridicule his entertainment, he does not think right. But whenever he expresses his sentiments upon this point to his wife, Thérèse answers him, half in German, half in French, "You are quite right; but what would you have? 'tis the fashion."
The only person at the ball who is honestly ashamed of her modest toilette is Stella, and this perhaps because the first object that her eyes encountered when she appeared with the Lipinskis, a little after eleven, was the Oblonsky in all her brilliant beauty and faultless elegance. By her side, her white feather fan on his knee, sits---- Edgar von Rohritz. Stella's heart stands still; ah, yes, now she knows why she has lost her bracelet. All the tender, child-like dreams that stole smiling upon her soul at sight of his flowers die at once, and Stasy's words at the Cologne railway-station resound in her ears: "Yes, it is ridiculous to think of rivalling the Princess: when she appears we ordinary women cease to exist."
"Yes, it is ridiculous to think of rivalling the Princess," Stella repeats to herself, "particularly for such a stupid, awkward, insignificant thing as I am."
She cannot take her eyes off the beautiful woman. How she smiles upon him, bestowing her attention upon him alone, while a crowd of Parisian dandies throng about her, waiting for an opportunity to claim a word. There is no doubt in Stella's mind that he is reconciled with Sophie Oblonsky.