After the Dance (Tolstoy)
Short summary
Russia, 1840s. Ivan Vasilievich recalled how one night changed his entire life.
As a young student, he was deeply in love with Varinka B——. At a carnival ball, he danced with her all night and watched her dance the mazurka with her father.
Filled with happiness, Ivan left the ball early morning. Walking past a parade ground, he witnessed a Tartar soldier being brutally beaten through the ranks. The man cried out:
Brothers, have mercy on me! Brothers, have mercy on me!... But the brothers had no mercy, and when the procession came close to me, I saw how a soldier... brought it down upon the man's back.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Philosophical introduction and the promise of a story
During a conversation about the impossibility of improving individual character without changing social conditions, an elderly gentleman disagreed with his companions' views. He argued that a person could understand good and evil independently, claiming that environment did not determine everything.
Ivan Vasilievich insisted that his entire life had been shaped not by environment but by something entirely different. When pressed to explain, he promised to tell a long story to make them understand.
My whole life was changed in one night, or, rather, morning... My whole life was moulded, not by environment, but by something quite different.
The ball and Ivan Vasilievichs love for Varinka
Ivan Vasilievich began his tale about a love affair from his youth in the 1840s when he was a university student. He had been deeply in love with a young woman, though he had experienced many loves throughout his life, this one was the most serious.
On the last day of carnival, Ivan Vasilievich attended a ball at the provincial marshal's house. The evening was magnificent, with excellent music provided by a serf orchestra and abundant champagne. Though fond of champagne, he drank nothing that night, being intoxicated with love instead. He danced waltzes and polkas until exhausted, whenever possible with Varinka, who wore a white dress with a pink sash.
A disgusting engineer named Anisimov had claimed the mazurka with Varinka, arriving before Ivan Vasilievich returned from the hairdresser's. Despite this setback, Ivan Vasilievich managed to dance most of the mazurka with her anyway, as she consistently chose him during the dance. Near the end of the ball, around three o'clock, he secured her promise for the quadrille after supper. She gave him a feather from her fan as a token, which filled him with rapture.
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.
The hostess urged Varinka to persuade her father to dance the mazurka with her. Her father was a handsome, well-preserved colonel with moustaches in the style of Nicolas I and white whiskers. Despite initially refusing, claiming he had forgotten how to dance, he gracefully accepted, removed his sword, and danced magnificently with his daughter. Ivan Vasilievich was particularly moved by the colonel's homemade boots, evidence of his sacrifice so his daughter could dress fashionably.
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.
His love for Varinka embraced everyone around him - the hostess, her husband, the guests, even the engineer Anisimov. After supper, he danced the promised quadrille with her, growing happier with every moment. He had no fear except that something might interfere with his great joy.
A sleepless night of happiness and dawn wandering
When Ivan Vasilievich returned home after four o'clock, he found sleep impossible. He treasured Varinka's feather and glove, seeing her constantly in his mind's eye. His brother was asleep, preparing for university examinations.
Too happy to sleep and finding the rooms too hot, Ivan Vasilievich put on his overcoat and stepped into the street. It was dawn, with typical carnival weather - foggy, with melting snow and water dripping from the eaves. He walked through the empty streets toward the field near Varinka's house, his heart full of song and the tune of the mazurka. Everything seemed stimulating and fascinating to him.
The horrific punishment scene and the colonels cruelty
As Ivan Vasilievich approached the field near Varinka's house, he saw something huge and black at the parade ground end, hearing harsh sounds of fife and drum. Walking closer with a blacksmith, he discovered soldiers in black uniforms standing in two rows. A Tartar soldier was being beaten through the ranks for attempting to desert.
The victim was stripped to the waist, fastened with cords to the guns of two soldiers who led him forward. At his side marched a tall officer whose figure looked familiar - it was Varinka's father. The man being punished sobbed repeatedly, "Brothers, have mercy on me!" but received no mercy. His back was a mass of unnatural, wet, red flesh.
It was Varinka's father, with his rosy face and white moustache... The colonel marched beside him, and looking now at his feet and now at the man, inhaled the air, puffed out his cheeks.
Suddenly the colonel stopped and approached a soldier in the ranks, furious that the man was not hitting hard enough.
I'll teach you to hit him gently... Will you pat him like that? Will you?... his strong hand in the suede glove struck the weak, bloodless, terrified soldier.
When the colonel noticed Ivan Vasilievich watching, he assumed an air of not knowing him and turned away with a ferocious frown. Ivan Vasilievich felt utterly ashamed and hurried home, the sounds of drums and the victim's pleas echoing in his ears.
The aftermath and how one night changed everything
Ivan Vasilievich struggled to understand what he had witnessed. He reasoned that the colonel must know something he did not, which would explain and justify the horrible scene.
Evidently he knows something I do not know... If I knew what he knows I should certainly grasp—understand—what I have just seen, and it would not cause me such suffering.
However, he could never understand it. Unable to grasp the meaning of what he had witnessed, Ivan Vasilievich could not enter military service as planned, nor even civil service. His love for Varinka also diminished - whenever she looked dreamy, he remembered the colonel on the parade ground and felt uncomfortable, eventually seeing her less frequently until his love came to nothing.
When... she looked dreamy and meditative, I instantly recollected the colonel on the parade ground... So my love came to naught. Yes; such chances arise, and they alter and direct a man's whole life.