“When we approached the door the colonel was just refusing to dance, saying that he had quite forgotten how; but at that instant he smiled, swung his arm gracefully around to the left, drew his sword from its sheath, handed it to an obliging young man who stood near, and smoothed his suede glove on his right hand.

“‘Everything must be done according to rule,’ he said with a smile.  He took the hand of his daughter, and stood one-quarter turned, waiting for the music.

“At the first sound of the mazurka, he stamped one foot smartly, threw the other forward, and, at first slowly and smoothly, then buoyantly and impetuously, with stamping of feet and clicking of boots, his tall, imposing figure moved the length of the room.  Varinka swayed gracefully beside him, rhythmically and easily, making her steps short or long, with her little feet in their white satin slippers.

“All the people in the room followed every movement of the couple.  As for me I not only admired, I regarded them with enraptured sympathy.  I was particularly impressed with the old gentleman’s boots.  They were not the modern pointed affairs, but were made of cheap leather, squared-toed, and evidently built by the regimental cobbler.  In order that his daughter might dress and go out in society, he did not buy fashionable boots, but wore home-made ones, I thought, and his square toes seemed to me most touching.  It was obvious that in his time he had been a good dancer; but now he was too heavy, and his legs had not spring enough for all the beautiful steps he tried to take.  Still, he contrived to go twice round the room.  When at the end, standing with legs apart, he suddenly clicked his feet together and fell on one knee, a bit heavily, and she danced gracefully around him, smiling and adjusting her skirt, the whole room applauded.

“Rising with an effort, he tenderly took his daughter’s face between his hands.  He kissed her on the forehead, and brought her to me, under the impression that I was her partner for the mazurka.  I said I was not.  ‘Well, never mind, just go around the room once with her,’ he said, smiling kindly, as he replaced his sword in the sheath.

“As the contents of a bottle flow readily when the first drop has been poured, so my love for Varinka seemed to set free the whole force of loving within me.  In surrounding her it embraced the world.  I loved the hostess with her diadem and her shoulders like Elizabeth, and her husband and her guests and her footmen, and even the engineer Anisimov who felt peevish towards me.  As for Varinka’s father, with his home-made boots and his kind smile, so like her own, I felt a sort of tenderness for him that was almost rapture.

“After supper I danced the promised quadrille with her, and though I had been infinitely happy before, I grew still happier every moment.

“We did not speak of love.  I neither asked myself nor her whether she loved me.  It was quite enough to know that I loved her.  And I had only one fear—­that something might come to interfere with my great joy.