Sonetchka now claimed my whole attention.  I remember that, as I stood in the salon with Etienne and Woloda, at a spot whence we could both see and be seen by Sonetchka, I took great pleasure in talking very loud (and all my utterances seemed to me both bold and comical) and glancing towards the door of the drawing-room, but that, as soon as ever we happened to move to another spot whence we could neither see nor be seen by her, I became dumb, and thought the conversation had ceased to be enjoyable.  The rooms were now full of people—­among them (as at all children’s parties) a number of elder children who wished to dance and enjoy themselves very much, but who pretended to do everything merely in order to give pleasure to the mistress of the house.

When the Iwins arrived I found that, instead of being as delighted as usual to meet Seriosha, I felt a kind of vexation that he should see and be seen by Sonetchka.

XXI —­ BEFORE THE MAZURKA

“Hullo, Woloda!  So we are going to dance to-night,” said Seriosha, issuing from the drawing-room and taking out of his pocket a brand new pair of gloves.  “I suppose it is necessary to put on gloves?”

“Goodness!  What shall I do?  We have no gloves,” I thought to myself.  “I must go upstairs and search about.”  Yet though I rummaged in every drawer, I only found, in one of them, my green travelling mittens, and, in another, a single lilac-coloured glove, a thing which could be of no use to me, firstly, because it was very old and dirty, secondly, because it was much too large for me, and thirdly (and principally), because the middle finger was wanting—­Karl having long ago cut it off to wear over a sore nail.

However, I put it on—­not without some diffident contemplation of the blank left by the middle finger and of the ink-stained edges round the vacant space.

“If only Natalia Savishna had been here,” I reflected, “we should certainly have found some gloves.  I can’t go downstairs in this condition.  Yet, if they ask me why I am not dancing, what am I to say?  However, I can’t remain here either, or they will be sending upstairs to fetch me.  What on earth am I to do?” and I wrung my hands.

“What are you up to here?” asked Woloda as he burst into the room.  “Go and engage a partner.  The dancing will be beginning directly.”

“Woloda,” I said despairingly, as I showed him my hand with two fingers thrust into a single finger of the dirty glove, “Woloda, you, never thought of this.”

“Of what?” he said impatiently.  “Oh, of gloves,” he added with a careless glance at my hand.  “That’s nothing.  We can ask Grandmamma what she thinks about it,” and without further ado he departed downstairs.  I felt a trifle relieved by the coolness with which he had met a situation which seemed to me so grave, and hastened back to the drawing-room, completely forgetful of the unfortunate glove which still adorned my left hand.