Natásha’s looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music, crumpling her program. “Look, there’s Alénina,” said Sónya, “with her mother, isn’t it?”
“Dear me, Mikháil Kirílovich has grown still stouter!” remarked the count.
“Look at our Anna Mikháylovna—what a headdress she has on!”
“The Karágins, Julie—and Borís with them. One can see at once that they’re engaged. …”
“Drubetskóy has proposed?”
“Oh yes, I heard it today,” said Shinshín, coming into the Rostóvs’ box.
Natásha looked in the direction in which her father’s eyes were turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck—which Natásha knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with an ear to Julie’s mouth, was Borís’ handsome smoothly brushed head. He looked at the Rostóvs from under his brows and said something, smiling, to his betrothed.