[War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy]@TWC D-Link bookWar and Peace CHAPTER XX 10/12
She was sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady. She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold. Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and smiling over the fan. "Dear, dear! Just look at her!" exclaimed the countess as she crossed the ballroom, pointing to Natasha. Natasha blushed and laughed. "Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised at ?" In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older visitors.
They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom.
First came Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances.
The count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to Marya Dmitrievna.
He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery, addressing the first violin: "Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper ?" This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth. (Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.) "Look at Papa!" shouted Natasha to the whole company, and quite forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter. And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner, Marya Dmitrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the onlookers for what was to follow.
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