After the Ball (Tolstoy)
Short summary
Provincial Russia, 1840s. During a conversation about whether environment determines character, Ivan Vasilievich recounted how a single night changed his life. As a wealthy university student, he attended a ball where he fell deeply in love with the beautiful Varinka B.
Ivan danced with Varinka throughout the evening, especially during the mazurka. He was enchanted by her grace and beauty, and particularly admired her father, a colonel who danced elegantly with his daughter.
After the ball, Ivan walked home in a state of bliss. Passing through a field, he encountered soldiers administering punishment to a Tartar deserter. To his horror, he recognized the officer supervising the brutal flogging was Varinka's father.
'I'll teach you to hit him gently,' I heard his furious voice say. 'Will you pat him like that? Will you?' and I saw how his strong hand in the suede glove struck the weak, bloodless, terrified soldier...
The stark contrast between the colonel's elegant dancing and his cruel behavior shattered Ivan's worldview. Unable to reconcile this contradiction, Ivan abandoned his plans to enter military or civil service. His love for Varinka faded, and he began to see her less frequently. This single incident altered the entire course of his life.
Detailed summary
Division into sections is editorial.
Introduction: On understanding good and evil
During a conversation about whether a person could understand good and evil independently or if environment determined moral understanding, an elderly man named Ivan Vasilievich disagreed with the notion that environment alone shaped character. He insisted that his own life had been molded by something quite different and offered to share his story as evidence.
My whole life was moulded, not by environment, but by something quite different... My whole life was changed in one night, or, rather, morning.
Ivans love story begins: Meeting Varinka
Ivan began his tale by describing his youth as a provincial university student. Unlike modern students concerned with political clubs and theories, he and his peers simply enjoyed their youth - studying and amusing themselves. Ivan was wealthy, owned a fine horse, and enjoyed social gatherings, especially balls where he could showcase his dancing skills.
At a ball hosted by the provincial marshal, Ivan met and fell deeply in love with an eighteen-year-old beauty named Varinka B. She was exceptionally beautiful with a queenly air despite her slender frame. Her cordial smile, charming eyes, and youthful sweetness captivated Ivan completely.
The magical ball: Dancing with Varinka
The ball was splendid, held in a magnificent room with an orchestra of serfs belonging to a musical landowner. The hostess, dressed in puce-colored velvet with a diamond diadem and bare shoulders, welcomed the guests warmly. Though Ivan enjoyed champagne, that night he was intoxicated solely by love. He danced waltzes and polkas until exhaustion, always seeking opportunities to dance with Varinka.
Ivan was disappointed when an engineer named Anisimov secured the mazurka with Varinka while Ivan was delayed at the hairdresser's getting gloves. Despite not being her official partner, Ivan managed to dance most of the mazurka with her anyway, as she repeatedly chose him during the dance figures. Whenever they waltzed together, she would smile and ask for more, leaving Ivan feeling as though he existed beyond his physical body.
I was not only pleased and gay, I was happy, delighted; I was good, I was not myself but some being not of this earth, knowing nothing of evil. I hid the feather in my glove, and stood there unable to tear myself away from her.
The highlight of the evening came when Varinka's father, a colonel with silver epaulettes, was persuaded to dance the mazurka with his daughter. The colonel, a handsome well-preserved man with curled mustaches in the style of Nicolas I, executed the dance with military precision. Though his movements lacked the spring of youth, he completed the dance impressively, ending by clicking his feet together and falling on one knee.
Ivan was particularly touched by the colonel's square-toed boots, clearly home-made by a regimental cobbler rather than fashionable footwear. This detail suggested to Ivan that the father sacrificed personal comfort so his daughter could dress well and participate in society. After the dance, the colonel kissed his daughter's forehead and brought her to Ivan, mistakenly thinking he was her mazurka partner.
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.
Dawn revelation: Witnessing military punishment
After the ball, Ivan was too elated to sleep. He left his brother's home where he was staying and went for a walk in the early morning. It was foggy with melting snow, typical carnival weather. As he approached a field near Varinka's house, he heard the sounds of fifes and drums coming from the direction of the parade ground.
Curious about the harsh music, Ivan walked toward the sound alongside a blacksmith. They discovered soldiers standing in two rows facing each other. Between the rows, a man stripped to the waist was being led forward, forced to walk through what Ivan learned was a punishment formation for a Tartar soldier who had attempted to desert. The man was being beaten from both sides as he moved through the gauntlet.
To Ivan's horror, he recognized the officer marching alongside the prisoner as Varinka's father, the same man who had danced so elegantly the night before. The colonel's face now showed a furious expression as he berated a soldier for not hitting the prisoner hard enough. The victim's back was so bloodied and disfigured that Ivan could hardly believe it was a human body.
It was something so many-coloured, wet, red, unnatural, that I could hardly believe it was a human body.
Consequences: A life forever changed
When the colonel noticed Ivan, he pretended not to recognize him and turned away with an angry frown. Ivan felt deeply ashamed, as though he himself had been caught in a disgraceful act. He hurried home, haunted by the sounds of the drums, fifes, and the Tartar's pleas for mercy. The contrast between the kind, elegant father at the ball and the cruel officer at the punishment was unbearable.
Unable to reconcile these two images of the colonel, Ivan's feelings for Varinka diminished. Whenever she appeared dreamy or meditative, he would recall her father on the parade ground and feel uncomfortable. He began seeing her less frequently, and his love eventually faded away. This single morning's revelation changed the entire course of Ivan's life - he abandoned his plans to enter either military or civil service, believing himself to have been of no use whatsoever since that day.
When, as often happened, she looked dreamy and meditative, I instantly recollected the colonel on the parade ground, and I felt so awkward and uncomfortable that I began to see her less frequently. So my love came to naught.
Yes; such chances arise, and they alter and direct a man's whole life... And so I have been of no use whatever, as you can see.