War and Peace Volume 2, Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary

  • The young people are all psyched to go out and dance at the ball.  It’s fun on every level – there’s the dancing itself, obviously, and the flirting, and some people have even met their spouses there.
  • It’s beautiful; everything and everyone is sparking. Natasha especially – she is the best dancer there.
  • Denisov can’t stop talking about Natasha. He sits out the first dance and watches her dance with the dance instructor.
  • But then Natasha comes to ask him to dance, and after pretending like he doesn’t want to, Denisov busts such a move on the floor that every girl immediately wants to dance with him.
  • However, he spends the whole rest of the evening by Natasha's side.