"This, then, is what I am?" I thought. And it gave me so much pleasure and gratification that I felt as if I loved him more than ever. My success with all our acquaintances was a thing absolutely unexpected by me. On all sides I was told: here, that I had particularly pleased my uncle, there, that an aunt was raving over me; by this one, that there was not a woman in all St. Petersburg like me; by that one, that if I chose there would not be a woman in society so sought after as myself. There was one cousin of my husband especially, Princess D., a lady of high rank and fashion, no longer young, who announced that she had fallen in love with me at first sight, and who did more than any one else to turn my head with flattering attentions. When, for the first time, this cousin proposed to me to go to a ball, and broached the subject to my husband, he turned towards me with an almost imperceptible smile, and mischievous glance, and asked if I wanted to go. I nodded, and felt my face flush. "One would say, a little culprit, confessing a wish," he said, laughing good-humoredly. "You told me we must not go into company, and that you would not like it," I responded, smiling also, and giving him an entreating glance. "If you wish it very much, we will go." "Indeed, I would rather...." "Do you wish it, wish it very much?" he repeated. I made no answer. "The greatest harm is not in the world, society, itself," he went on; "it is unsatisfied worldly aspirations that are so evil, so unhealthful. Certainly we must go,--and we will go," he concluded, unhesitatingly. "To tell you the truth," I replied, "there is nothing in the world I long for so much as to go to this ball!" We went to it, and my delight was far beyond all my anticipations. At this ball, even more than before, it seemed to me that I was the centre around which everything was revolving; that it was for me alone that this splendid room was in a blaze of light, that the music was sounding, that the gay throng was gathering in ecstasy before me. All, from the hair-dresser and my maid to the dancers, and even the stately old gentlemen who slowly walked about through the rooms, watching the younger people, seemed to me to be either implying or telling me in downright speech that they were wild about me. The impression which I produced at this ball, and which my cousin proudly confided to me, was summed up in the general verdict that I was not the least in the world like other women, and that there was about me some peculiar quality which recalled the simplicity and charm of the country. This success flattered me so much that I frankly owned to my husband how I longed to go to at least two or three of the balls to be given in the course of the winter, "in order," I said, despite a sharp little whisper from my conscience, "that I may be satiated, once for all!"