Pan Michael by Henryk Sienkiewicz — Read

The snow fell so thickly that it filled the stanitsa trench altogether, and settled on the stockade wall like a mound. Outside were night and a storm; but the chief room in Hreptyoff was blazing with light. There were two violins, a bass-viol, a flageolet, a French horn, and two bugles. The fiddlers worked away till they were turning in their seats. The cheeks of the flageolet player and the buglers were puffed out, and their eyes were bloodshot. The oldest officers sat on benches at the wall, one near another -- as gray doves sit before their cotes in a roof -- and while drinking mead and wine looked at the dancers.

Basia opened the ball with Pan Mushalski, who, despite advanced years, was as great a dancer as a bowman. Basia wore a robe of silver brocade edged with ermine, and resembled a newly blown rose in fresh snow. Young and old marvelled at her beauty, and the cry "Save us! " came involuntarily from the breasts of many; for though Panna Eva and Panna Zosia were somewhat younger, and beautiful beyond common measure, still Basia surpassed all. In her eyes delight and pleasure were flashing. As she swept past the little knight she thanked him for the entertainment with a smile; through her open rosy mouth gleamed white teeth, and she shone in her silver robe, glittering like a sun-ray or a star, and enchanted the eye and the heart with the beauty of a child, a woman, and a flower. The split sleeves of her robe fluttered after her like the wings of a great butterfly; and when, raising her skirt, she made an obeisance before her partner, you would think that she was floating on the earth like a vision, or one of those sprites which on bright nights in summer skip along the edges of ravines.