by Leo Tolstoy
When the princess came in five minutes later, she found them perfectly reconciled. Kitty had not only assured him that she loved him, but in answering his question about what she could love him for, had even explained to him what for. She had told him that she loved him because she thoroughly understood him, that she knew what he must love and that all that he loved, all of it, was good. And that seemed perfectly clear to him. When the princess came in, they were sitting side by side on the trunk, sorting out dresses and arguing over Kitty's wanting to give Dunyasha the brown dress she had been wearing when Levin proposed to her, while he insisted that that dress should not be given to anyone and that Dunyasha should get the light blue one.
'How can you not understand? She's a brunette and it won't suit her ... I have it all worked out.'
On learning why he had come, the princess became angry half jokingly, half seriously, and sent him home to get dressed and not interfere with Kitty's having her hair done, because Charles would be coming presently.
'She's eaten nothing all these days and doesn't look well as it is, and here you come and upset her with your silliness,' she said to him. 'On your way, on your way, my dear man!'
Levin, guilty and ashamed, yet comforted, went back to his hotel. His brother, Darya Alexandrovna and Stepan Arkadyich, all fully dressed, were already waiting for him, to bless him with an icon. There was no time to linger. Darya Alexandrovna still had to go home to pick up her pomaded and curled son, who was to carry the icon for the bride.[5] Then one carriage had to be sent for the best man and another had to be sent back to pick up Sergei Ivanovich ... Generally, there were a number of quite complicated considerations. One thing was beyond doubt - that they could not dawdle because it was already half-past six.
The blessing with the icon did not turn out well. Stepan Arkadyich assumed a comically solemn pose standing next to his wife, took the icon and, after telling Levin to bow to the ground, blessed him with a kind and mocking smile and kissed him three times. Darya Alexandrovna did the same, then hastened to leave at once and again became confused about the projected itineraries for the carriages.
'Well, here's what we'll do: you go and fetch him in our carriage, and Sergei Ivanovich, if he will be so kind, can go and then send the carriage back.'
'Why, I'll be very glad to.'
'And we'll go with him now. Have your things been sent?' said Stepan Arkadyich.
'Yes,' replied Levin, and he told Kuzma to prepare his clothes.
III
A crowd of people, especially women, surrounded the church which was lit up for the wedding. Those who had not managed to get into the middle crowded around the windows, shoving, arguing and looking through the grilles.
More than twenty carriages had already been ranged along the street by policemen. A police officer, disdainful of the frost, stood at the entrance in his dazzling uniform. More carriages kept driving up, and ladies in flowers, picking up the trains of their dresses, or men removing their caps or black hats, entered the church. Inside the church itself, both lustres were already lit as well as all the candles by the icons. The golden glow on the red background of the iconostasis,[6] the gilded carvings of the icon cases, the silver of the chandeliers and candle stands, the flagstones of the floor, the rugs, the banners up by the choirs, the steps of the ambo, the blackened old books, the cassocks and surplices -everything was flooded with light. To the right side of the heated church,[7] in the crowd of tailcoats and white ties, of uniforms and brocades, velvet, satin, hair, flowers, bared shoulders and arms and long gloves, there was subdued but lively talk, echoing strangely in the high cupola. Each time the door creaked open, the talking in the crowd hushed and everyone turned, expecting to see the bride and bridegroom enter. But the door had already opened more than ten times, and each time it was either a latecomer who joined the circle of invited guests to the right, or a spectator who had tricked or cajoled the police officer into letting her join the crowd of strangers to the left. The relatives and the strangers had already gone through all the phases of expectation.
At first it was supposed that the bride and bridegroom would come at any moment and no significance was ascribed to the delay. Then they began glancing more and more often at the door, talking about whether something might not have happened. Then the delay became awkward, and the relatives and guests tried to pretend that they were not thinking about the bridegroom but were taken up with their own conversations.
The protodeacon, as if to remind people of the value of his time, kept coughing impatiently, making the glass in the windows rattle. From the choir came the sounds now of voices warming up, now of bored singers blowing their noses. The priest was constantly sending the beadle or the deacon to see if the bridegroom had come and, in his purple cassock and embroidered belt, came out of the side door more and more often in expectation of the bridegroom. Finally one of the ladies, looking at her watch, said: 'It is odd, though!' and all the guests became agitated and began to voice their astonishment and displeasure. One of the groomsmen went to find out what had happened. Kitty, all the while, had long since been quite ready, in a white dress, a long veil and a coronet of orange blossoms, and stood with her sponsor and sister Natalie in the reception room of the Shcherbatsky house, looking out of the window, waiting in vain for word from her best man that the bridegroom had arrived at the church.
Levin, meanwhile, in his trousers but with no waistcoat or tailcoat, was pacing up and down his room, constantly thrusting himself out of the door and looking into the corridor. But the one he was expecting was not to be seen in the corridor, and, coming back in despair and throwing up his hands, he addressed the calmly smoking Stepan Arkadyich.
'Has any man ever been in such a terribly idiotic position!' he said.
'Yes, it's stupid,' Stepan Arkadyich agreed with a soothing smile. 'But calm down, they'll bring it in a moment.'
'No, really!' Levin said with suppressed rage. 'And these idiotic open-front waistcoats! Impossible!' he said, looking at the crumpled front of his shirt. 'And what if my things have already been taken to the station!' he cried in despair.
'Then you'll wear mine.'
'I should have done that long ago.'
'It's better not to look ridiculous . .. Wait! things will shape up.'
The trouble was that when Levin had asked for his clothes, Kuzma, his old servant, had brought the tailcoat, the waistcoat and everything needed.
'But where's the shirt!' cried Levin.
'The shirt is on you,' Kuzma replied with a calm smile.
It had not occurred to Kuzma to lay out a clean shirt and, on receiving the order to have everything packed and taken to the Shcherbatskys', from where the newlyweds were to set out that same night, he had done just that, packing everything except the dress suit. The shirt, worn since morning, was wrinkled and impossible with the now fashionable open-front waistcoat. It was too far to send to the Shcherbatskys'. They sent a footman to buy a shirt. He came back: everything was closed - it was Sunday. They sent to Stepan Arkadyich's for a shirt: it was impossibly wide and short. They finally sent to the Shcherbatskys' to have the luggage unpacked. The bridegroom was expected at the church and here he was, like an animal locked in a cage, pacing the room, poking his head out to the corridor and recalling with horror and despair all that he had said to Kitty and what she might be thinking now.
At last the guilty Kuzma, gasping for breath, came flying into the room with the shirt.
'Nearly missed them. They were already loading it on the cart,' Kuzma said.
Three minutes later, not looking at his watch so as not to rub salt into the wound, Levin went running down the corridor.
'That won't help now,' Stepan Arkadyich said with a smile, unhurriedly trotting after him. 'Things will shape up, things will shape up... I'm telling you.'
IV
They've come!' 'Here he is!' 'Which one?' 'The younger one, is it?' 'And she, poor dear, is more dead than alive!' Voices came from the crowd, as Levin, having
met his bride at the door, entered the church together with her.
Stepan Arkadyich told his wife the reason for the delay, and the guests, smiling, exchanged whispers. Levin did not notice anything or anyone; he gazed at his bride without taking his eyes off her.
Everyone said she had been looking very poorly over the last few days and at the altar was far less pretty than usual; but Levin did not find it so. He looked at her hair, dressed high under the long white veil and white flowers, at her high, stiff, fluted collar, which in an especially maidenly way covered her long neck at the sides and left it open in front, and at her amazingly slender waist, and it seemed to him that she was better than ever - not because these flowers, this veil, this gown ordered from Paris added anything to her beauty, but because, in spite of all the prepared magnificence of her attire, the expression of her dear face, her eyes, her lips, was still her own special expression of innocent truthfulness.
'I was thinking you wanted to run away,' she said and smiled at him.
'It's so stupid, what happened to me, I'm ashamed to speak of it!' he said, blushing, and he had to turn to the approaching Sergei Ivanovich.
'Your shirt story's a fine one!' Sergei Ivanovich said, shaking his head and smiling.
'Yes, yes,' Levin answered, not understanding what was said to him.
'Well, Kostya, now you've got to decide an important question,' said Stepan Arkadyich, with a look of mock fright. 'Precisely now you will be able to appreciate its full importance. I've been asked what candles to light, used ones or new ones?[8] It's a difference of ten roubles,' he added, drawing his lips into a smile. 'I decided, but was afraid you wouldn't give your consent.'
Levin realized that this was a joke, but was unable to smile.
'So, which is it - new or used? That is the question.'
'Yes, yes, new ones!'
'Well, I'm very glad. The question's decided!' Stepan Arkadyich said, smiling. 'How stupid people get in this situation, though,' he said to Chirikov, as Levin, giving him a lost look, moved nearer to his bride.
'See that you're the first to step on the rug,[9] Kitty,' Countess Nordston said, coming up. 'A fine one you are!' she turned to Levin.
'What, frightened?' said Marya Dmitrievna, her old aunt.
'You're not chilly? You look pale. Wait, bend down!' Kitty's sister Natalie said and, rounding her full, beautiful arms, she smilingly straightened the flowers on her head.
Dolly came over, tried to say something, but could not get it out, began to cry, then laughed unnaturally.
Kitty looked at everyone with the same absent gaze as Levin. To all that was said to her she could respond only with the smile of happiness that was now so natural to her.
Meanwhile the clergy had put on their vestments, and the priest and deacon came out to the lectern that stood inside the porch of the church.[10] The priest turned to Levin and said something. Levin could not make out what the priest said.
'Take the bride's hand and lead her,' the best man said to Levin.
For a long time Levin could not understand what was required of him. For a long time they kept correcting him and were about to give it up - because he kept either taking the wrong hand or taking it with the wrong hand - when he finally understood that he had to take her right hand with his own right hand without changing position. When he finally took the bride by the hand as he was supposed to, the priest went a few steps ahead of them and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of relations and acquaintances moved after them with a buzz of talk and a rustle of skirts. Someone bent down and straightened the bride's train. The church became so still that the dripping of wax could be heard.
The little old priest, in a kamilavka,[11] with the silvery gleam of his grey locks of hair pulled back on both sides behind his ears, drew his small, old man's hands out from under his heavy chasuble, silver with a gold cross on the back, and fumbled with something at the lectern.
Stepan Arkadyich cautiously went up to him, whispered something, and, with a wink at Levin, went back again.
The priest lighted two candles adorned with flowers, holding them slantwise in his left hand so that the wax slowly dripped from them, and turned to face the young couple. He was the same priest who had confessed Levin. He looked wearily and sadly at the bride and bridegroom, sighed and, drawing his right hand out from under the chasuble, blessed the bridegroom and in the same way, but with a touch of careful tenderness placed his joined fingers over Kitty's bowed head. Then he handed them the candles and, taking the censer, slowly moved away from them.
'Can this be true?' Levin thought and looked at his bride. He could see her profile from slightly above, and by the barely perceptible movement of her lips and eyelashes he knew that she felt his gaze. She did not turn, but her high, fluted collar stirred, rising to her small pink ear. He could see that a sigh had stopped in her breast, and her small hand in its long glove trembled, holding the candle.
All the fuss over the shirt, over being late, the talking with acquaintances, relations, their displeasure, his ridiculousness - all suddenly vanished, and he felt joyful and frightened.
The handsome, tall protodeacon in a silver surplice, his brushed, curled locks standing out on either side, stepped briskly forward and, raising his stole in two fingers with an accustomed gesture, stopped in front of the priest.
'Ble-e-ess, ma-a-aster!' Slowly, one after the other, the solemn tones resounded, making the air ripple.
'Blessed is our God always, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages,' the old priest responded humbly and melodiously, continuing to fumble with something on the lectern. And, filling the whole church from windows to vaults, broadly and harmoniously, the full chord of the invisible choir rose, swelled, paused for a moment, and slowly died away.
The prayer was, as always, for the peace from above, for salvation, for the Synod,[12] for the emperor, and also for the servants of God Konstantin and Ekaterina, betrothed that day.
'That He will send down upon them perfect and peaceful love, and succour, let us pray to the Lord' - the whole church seemed to breathe through the protodeacon's voice.
Levin listened to the words and they struck him. 'How did they guess that it's succour, precisely succour?' he thought, remembering all his recent fears and doubts. 'What do I know? What can I do in this terrible matter,' he thought, 'without succour? It's precisely succour that I need now.'
When the deacon finished the litany, the priest turned with his book to the couple to be betrothed:
'O eternal God, who has brought into unity those who were sundered,' he read in a mild, melodious voice, 'and hast ordained for them an indissoluble bond of love; who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and didst make them heirs of thy promise: bless also these thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, guiding them unto every good work. For thou art a merciful God, who lovest mankind, and unto thee do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages.'
'A-a-men!' the invisible choir again poured into the air.
' "Who hast brought into unity those who were sundered, and hast ordained for them an indissoluble bond of love" - how profound these words are, and how well they correspond to what one feels at this moment!' thought Levin. 'Does she feel the same as I do?'
And, turning, he met her eyes.
And by the look in those eyes he concluded that she understood it as he did. But that was not so; she had almost no understanding of the words of the service and did not even listen during the betrothal. She was unable to hear and understand them: so strong was the one feeling that filled her soul and was growing stronger and stronger. That feeling was the joy of the complete fulfilment of that which had already been accomplished in her soul a month and a half ago and throughout all those six weeks had caused her joy and torment. On that day when, in her brown dress, in the reception room of their house on the Arbat, she had silently gone up to him and given herself to him - in her soul on that day and hour there was accomplished a total
break with her entire former life, and there began a completely different, new life, totally unknown to her, while in reality the old one had gone on. Those six weeks had been a most blissful and tormenting time for her. All her life, all her desires and hopes were concentrated on this one man, still incomprehensible to her, with whom she was united by some feeling still more incomprehensible than the man himself, now drawing her to him, now repulsing her, and all the while she went on living in the circumstances of her former life. Living her old life, she was horrified at herself, at her total, insuperable indifference to her entire past: to things, to habits, to people who had loved and still loved her, to her mother, who was upset by this indifference, to her dear, tender father, whom she had once loved more than anyone in the world. First she would be horrified at this indifference, then she would rejoice over what had brought her to it. She could neither think nor desire anything outside her life with this man; but this new life had not begun yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was nothing but expectation
- the fear and joy of the new and unknown. And now the expectation, and the unknownness, and remorse at the renouncing of her former life
- all this was about to end, and the new was to begin. This new could not help being frightening; but, frightening or not, it had already been accomplished six weeks earlier in her soul; now was merely the sanctifying of what had long ago been performed.
