In “Her First Ball,” Leila—a young woman of 18—attends her first formal dance. Having grown up in the New Zealand countryside, Leila has never attended a ball before, and she is overcome with anticipation. Everything appears “new and exciting”: the floor, the lights, the stage, and the dancing itself. But as the story progresses, it becomes clear that Leila’s feverish sense of novelty cannot last. Even the most youthful dancers are accustomed to the ritual of attending balls, with some of them seeming already tired and bored. Furthermore, while the dancers may think they’ll be young forever, their future is visible onstage where fathers and mothers sit in chairs, watching their children dance and lamenting their own lost youth. By contrasting Leila’s breathless excitement with the jadedness of the young dancers and their aged parents, Katherine Mansfield shows that—despite the adolescent feeling that one is “at the beginning of everything”—youth quickly fades. While Leila may feel that everything is new, she’s actually enacting an age-old pattern, and her innocent excitement will dissipate just as it did for generations of dancers before her.
Since this is Leila’s very first ball, everything about it excites her—even things that others find ordinary. Leila’s delight in small, ordinary things is clearest in contrast to her cousins, the Sheridans, who have been to many balls before. While they are “indifferent” to the beauty and indulgence around them, Leila notices everything: the flowers, the outfits, the lights. She even wishes she could keep as a memento the discarded tissue paper from her cousin Laurie’s gloves. Mansfield takes pains to connect Leila’s excitement to her age; one Sheridan refers to Leila as “my child,” another as “my little country cousin.” But the anticipation Leila feels comes more from novelty than from youth; after all, the Sheridans are around Leila’s age, but since they’ve already been to many balls, they don’t feel the same sense of overwhelmed excitement. Leila’s fevered state, then, is a reflection of this being her first ball—an experience she will never have again.
Once the dancing starts, Mansfield makes clear that Leila’s sense of novelty will not last. The ball opens with men approaching the women to fill out their dance programs, and Leila meets “quite an old man” who believes he might recognize her from a previous ball. Though Leila thinks nothing of it at the time, the man’s mistaken reference to having seen her before suggests that, while everything at the ball is new to her, she herself is not a novelty—she’s indistinguishable from countless other young women who have attended these balls over the years. Furthermore, as Leila dances with several young men, she notices them behaving the same way: they all comment on the quality of the floor and then ask if they’ve seen her at previous balls. Her first partner’s voice even sounds “tired” as he speaks. Not only does this reinforce that most of the dancers (despite their youth) are already used to (and even bored with) these balls—but it also shows Leila in the process of losing her own sense of newness. Within her first few dances, Leila is already having conversations that are familiar to her, growing used to the patterns of the ball.
When the old man finally dances with Leila, he is explicit that her youth and excitement are already fading. Referencing the mothers sitting onstage, he tells Leila that she’ll be one of them before long, watching her daughter dance and pining for her own bygone youth. Leila is horrified to realize that “this first ball [is] only the beginning of her last ball”—that time marches along for everyone, and novelty and youth cannot last. While this revelation seems for a moment like it will ruin Leila’s night, it doesn’t; even knowing what awaits her, she’s able to return temporarily to her youthful feelings. After leaving the old man, the music swells and another young man asks her to dance. Despite her reluctance, she quickly forgets the sobering conversation she’s just had. As she dances, the room is once again a whirling blur of flowers, lights, and faces, and she’s swept back up in her joy.
While this ending might seem to signify youth and innocence triumphing over cynicism and age, it’s not so simple; Mansfield makes clear that while Leila may feel that this night is completely new, she’s actually part of a generations-old pattern. Every person in the ballroom once had their first ball, and afterwards the excitement faded; soon she will be one of the youthful dancers following a conversational script, bored with repeating this social ritual over and over. Then, inevitably, she will be the parent of someone having his or her first ball, remembering her own excitement while knowing that her child, too, will grow old. Mansfield emphasizes this generational cycle in one of her closing images; as Leila swirls around the ball, the amazing sights around her become a “beautiful flying wheel.” The image of a wheel evokes the passage of hands around a clock and the notion of the life cycle. Adolescence is a time of new, exciting experiences—but this very experience of adolescent newness is itself a well-worn pattern, one that every generation feels. As Leila dances, she temporarily forgets what the man told her, but it’s clear to readers that her innocence won’t last.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Youth, Novelty, and Aging ThemeTracker
Youth, Novelty, and Aging Quotes in Her First Ball
Oh dear, how hard it was to be indifferent like the others! She tried not to smile too much; she tried not to care. But every single thing was so new and exciting…Meg’s tuberoses, Jose’s long loop of amber, Laura’s little dark head, pushing above her white fur like a flower through snow. She would remember for ever.
[…] instead of replying the fat man wrote something, glanced at her again. ‘Do I remember this bright little face?’ he said softly. ‘Is it known to me of yore?’ At that moment the band began playing; the fat man disappeared. He was tossed away on a great wave of music that came flying over the gleaming floor, breaking the groups up into couples, scattering them, sending them spinning…
‘Floor’s not bad,’ said the new voice. Did one always begin with the floor? And then, ‘Were you at the Neaves’ on Tuesday?’ And again Leila explained. Perhaps it was a little strange that her partners were not more interested. For it was thrilling. Her first ball! She was only at the beginning of everything. It seemed to her that she had never known what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent, beautiful very often—oh yes—but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it would never be like that again—it had opened dazzling bright.
…‘you can’t hope to last anything like as long as that. No-o,’ said the fat man, ‘long before that you'll be sitting up there on the stage, looking on, in your nice black velvet. And these pretty arms will have turned into little short fat ones, and you’ll beat time with such a different kind of fan—a black ebony one.’ The fat man seemed to shudder. ‘And you’ll smile away like the poor old dears up there, and point to your daughter, and tell the elderly lady next to you how some dreadful man tried to kiss her at the club ball. And your heart will ache, ache’—the fat man squeezed her closer still, as if he really was sorry for that poor heart—‘because no one wants to kiss you now. And you’ll say how unpleasant these polished floors are to walk on, how dangerous they, are.”
Was this first ball only the beginning of her last ball, after all? At that the music seemed to change; it sounded sad, sad; it rose upon a great sigh. Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn’t a bit too long.
Again the couples paraded. The swing doors opened and shut. Now new music was given out by the bandmaster. But Leila didn’t want to dance any more. She wanted to be home, or sitting on the veranda listening to those baby owls.
But in one minute, in one turn, her feet glided, glided. The lights, the azaleas, the dresses, the pink faces, the velvet chairs, all became one beautiful flying wheel. And when her next partner bumped her into the fat man and he said, ‘Pardon,’ she smiled at him more radiantly than ever. She didn’t even recognise him again.
