Chapter 4

‘They’ve come!’ ‘Here he is!’ ‘Which one?’ ‘Rather young, eh?’ ‘Why, my dear soul, she looks more dead than alive!’ were the comments in the crowd, when Levin, meeting his bride in the entrance, walked with her into the church.

Stepan Arkadyevitch told his wife the cause of the delay, and the guests were whispering it with smiles to one another. Levin saw nothing and no one; he did not take his eyes off his bride.

Everyone said she had lost her looks dreadfully of late, and was not nearly so pretty on her wedding day as usual; but Levin did not think so. He looked at her hair done up high, with the long white veil and white flowers and the high, stand-up, scalloped collar, that in such a maidenly fashion hid her long neck at the sides and only showed it in front, her strikingly slender figure, and it seemed to him that she looked better than ever—not because these flowers, this veil, this gown from Paris added anything to her beauty; but because, in spite of the elaborate sumptuousness of her attire, the expression of her sweet face, of her eyes, of her lips was still her own characteristic expression of guileless truthfulness.

‘I was beginning to think you meant to run away,’ she said, and smiled to him.

‘It’s so stupid, what happened to me, I’m ashamed to speak of it!’ he said, reddening, and he was obliged to turn to Sergey Ivanovitch, who came up to him.

‘This is a pretty story of yours about the shirt!’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head and smiling.

‘Yes, yes!’ answered Levin, without an idea of what they were talking about.

‘Now, Kostya, you have to decide,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch with an air of mock dismay, ‘a weighty question. You are at this moment just in the humor to appreciate all its gravity. They ask me, are they to light the candles that have been lighted before or candles that have never been lighted? It’s a matter of ten roubles,’ he added, relaxing his lips into a smile. ‘I have decided, but I was afraid you might not agree.’

Levin saw it was a joke, but he could not smile.

‘Well, how’s it to be then?—unlighted or lighted candles? that’s the question.’

‘Yes, yes, unlighted.’

‘Oh, I’m very glad. The question’s decided!’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. ‘How silly men are, though, in this position,’ he said to Tchirikov, when Levin, after looking absently at him, had moved back to his bride.

‘Kitty, mind you’re the first to step on the carpet,’ said Countess Nordston, coming up. ‘You’re a nice person!’ she said to Levin.

‘Aren’t you frightened, eh?’ said Marya Dmitrievna, an old aunt.

‘Are you cold? You’re pale. Stop a minute, stoop down,’ said Kitty’s sister, Madame Lvova, and with her plump, handsome arms she smilingly set straight the flowers on her head.

Dolly came up, tried to say something, but could not speak, cried, and then laughed unnaturally.

Kitty looked at all of them with the same absent eyes as Levin.

Meanwhile the officiating clergy had got into their vestments, and the priest and deacon came out to the lectern, which stood in the forepart of the church. The priest turned to Levin saying something. Levin did not hear what the priest said.

‘Take the bride’s hand and lead her up,’ the best man said to Levin.

It was a long while before Levin could make out what was expected of him. For a long time they tried to set him right and made him begin again—because he kept taking Kitty by the wrong arm or with the wrong arm—till he understood at last that what he had to do was, without changing his position, to take her right hand in his right hand. When at last he had taken the bride’s hand in the correct way, the priest walked a few paces in front of them and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of friends and relations moved after them, with a buzz of talk and a rustle of skirts. Someone stooped down and pulled out the bride’s train. The church became so still that the drops of wax could be heard falling from the candles.

The little old priest in his ecclesiastical cap, with his long silvery-gray locks of hair parted behind his ears, was fumbling with something at the lectern, putting out his little old hands from under the heavy silver vestment with the gold cross on the back of it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch approached him cautiously, whispered something, and making a sign to Levin, walked back again.

The priest lighted two candles, wreathed with flowers, and holding them sideways so that the wax dropped slowly from them he turned, facing the bridal pair. The priest was the same old man that had confessed Levin. He looked with weary and melancholy eyes at the bride and bridegroom, sighed, and putting his right hand out from his vestment, blessed the bridegroom with it, and also with a shade of solicitous tenderness laid the crossed fingers on the bowed head of Kitty. Then he gave them the candles, and taking the censer, moved slowly away from them.

‘Can it be true?’ thought Levin, and he looked round at his bride. Looking down at her he saw her face in profile, and from the scarcely perceptible quiver of her lips and eyelashes he knew she was aware of his eyes upon her. She did not look round, but the high scalloped collar, that reached her little pink ear, trembled faintly. He saw that a sigh was held back in her throat, and the little hand in the long glove shook as it held the candle.

All the fuss of the shirt, of being late, all the talk of friends and relations, their annoyance, his ludicrous position—all suddenly passed away and he was filled with joy and dread.

The handsome, stately head-deacon wearing a silver robe and his curly locks standing out at each side of his head, stepped smartly forward, and lifting his stole on two fingers, stood opposite the priest.

‘Blessed be the name of the Lord,’ the solemn syllables rang out slowly one after another, setting the air quivering with waves of sound.

‘Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,’ the little old priest answered in a submissive, piping voice, still fingering something at the lectern. And the full chorus of the unseen choir rose up, filling the whole church, from the windows to the vaulted roof, with broad waves of melody. It grew stronger, rested for an instant, and slowly died away.

They prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for salvation, for the Holy Synod, and for the Tsar; they prayed, too, for the servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now plighting their troth.

‘Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace and help, O Lord, we beseech Thee,’ the whole church seemed to breathe with the voice of the head deacon.

Levin heard the words, and they impressed him. ‘How did they guess that it is help, just help that one wants?’ he thought, recalling all his fears and doubts of late. ‘What do I know? what can I do in this fearful business,’ he thought, ‘without help? Yes, it is help I want now.’

When the deacon had finished the prayer for the Imperial family, the priest turned to the bridal pair with a book: ‘Eternal God, that joinest together in love them that were separate,’ he read in a gentle, piping voice: ‘who hast ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot be set asunder, Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and their descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant; bless Thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, leading them in the path of all good works. For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to Thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever shall be.’

‘Amen!’ the unseen choir sent rolling again upon the air.

‘‘Joinest together in love them that were separate.’ What deep meaning in those words, and how they correspond with what one feels at this moment,’ thought Levin. ‘Is she feeling the same as I?’

And looking round, he met her eyes, and from their expression he concluded that she was understanding it just as he was. But this was a mistake; she almost completely missed the meaning of the words of the service; she had not heard them, in fact. She could not listen to them and take them in, so strong was the one feeling that filled her breast and grew stronger and stronger. That feeling was joy at the completion of the process that for the last month and a half had been going on in her soul, and had during those six weeks been a joy and a torture to her. On the day when in the drawing room of the house in Arbaty Street she had gone up to him in her brown dress, and given herself to him without a word—on that day, at that hour, there took place in her heart a complete severance from all her old life, and a quite different, new, utterly strange life had begun for her, while the old life was actually going on as before. Those six weeks had for her been a time of the utmost bliss and the utmost misery. All her life, all her desires and hopes were concentrated on this one man, still uncomprehended by her, to whom she was bound by a feeling of alternate attraction and repulsion, even less comprehended than the man himself, and all the while she was going on living in the outward conditions of her old life. Living the old life, she was horrified at herself, at her utter insurmountable callousness to all her own past, to things, to habits, to the people she had loved, who loved her—to her mother, who was wounded by her indifference, to her kind, tender father, till then dearer than all the world. At one moment she was horrified at this indifference, at another she rejoiced at what had brought her to this indifference. She could not frame a thought, not a wish apart from life with this man; but this new life was not yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was only anticipation, the dread and joy of the new and the unknown. And now behold—anticipation and uncertainty and remorse at the abandonment of the old life—all was ending, and the new was beginning. This new life could not but have terrors for her inexperience; but, terrible or not, the change had been wrought six weeks before in her soul, and this was merely the final sanction of what had long been completed in her heart.

Turning again to the lectern, the priest with some difficulty took Kitty’s little ring, and asking Levin for his hand, put it on the first joint of his finger. ‘The servant of God, Konstantin, plights his troth to the servant of God, Ekaterina.’ And putting his big ring on Kitty’s touchingly weak, pink little finger, the priest said the same thing.

And the bridal pair tried several times to understand what they had to do, and each time made some mistake and were corrected by the priest in a whisper. At last, having duly performed the ceremony, having signed the rings with the cross, the priest handed Kitty the big ring, and Levin the little one. Again they were puzzled, and passed the rings from hand to hand, still without doing what was expected.

Dolly, Tchirikov, and Stepan Arkadyevitch stepped forward to set them right. There was an interval of hesitation, whispering, and smiles; but the expression of solemn emotion on the faces of the betrothed pair did not change: on the contrary, in their perplexity over their hands they looked more grave and deeply moved than before, and the smile with which Stepan Arkadyevitch whispered to them that now they would each put on their own ring died away on his lips. He had a feeling that any smile would jar on them.

‘Thou who didst from the beginning create male and female,’ the priest read after the exchange of rings, ‘from Thee woman was given to man to be a helpmeet to him, and for the procreation of children. O Lord, our God, who hast poured down the blessings of Thy Truth according to Thy Holy Covenant upon Thy chosen servants, our fathers, from generation to generation, bless Thy servants Konstantin and Ekaterina, and make their troth fast in faith, and union of hearts, and truth, and love….’

Levin felt more and more that all his ideas of marriage, all his dreams of how he would order his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood hitherto, and now understood less than ever, though it was being performed upon him. The lump in his throat rose higher and higher, tears that would not be checked came into his eyes.

Chapter 5

In the church there was all Moscow, all the friends and relations; and during the ceremony of plighting troth, in the brilliantly lighted church, there was an incessant flow of discreetly subdued talk in the circle of gaily dressed women and girls, and men in white ties, frockcoats, and uniforms. The talk was principally kept up by the men, while the women were absorbed in watching every detail of the ceremony, which always means so much to them.

In the little group nearest to the bride were her two sisters: Dolly, and the other one, the self-possessed beauty, Madame Lvova, who had just arrived from abroad.

‘Why is it Marie’s in lilac, as bad as black, at a wedding?’ said Madame Korsunskaya.

‘With her complexion, it’s the one salvation,’ responded Madame Trubetskaya. ‘I wonder why they had the wedding in the evening? It’s like shop-people…’

‘So much prettier. I was married in the evening too…’ answered Madame Korsunskaya, and she sighed, remembering how charming she had been that day, and how absurdly in love her husband was, and how different it all was now.

‘They say if anyone’s best man more than ten times, he’ll never be married. I wanted to be for the tenth time, but the post was taken,’ said Count Siniavin to the pretty Princess Tcharskaya, who had designs on him.

Princess Tcharskaya only answered with a smile. She looked at Kitty, thinking how and when she would stand with Count Siniavin in Kitty’s place, and how she would remind him then of his joke today.

Shtcherbatsky told the old maid of honor, Madame Nikolaeva, that he meant to put the crown on Kitty’s chignon for luck.

‘She ought not to have worn a chignon,’ answered Madame Nikolaeva, who had long ago made up her mind that if the elderly widower she was angling for married her, the wedding should be of the simplest. ‘I don’t like such grandeur.’

Sergey Ivanovitch was talking to Darya Dmitrievna, jestingly assuring her that the custom of going away after the wedding was becoming common because newly married people always felt a little ashamed of themselves.

‘Your brother may feel proud of himself. She’s a marvel of sweetness. I believe you’re envious.’

‘Oh, I’ve got over that, Darya Dmitrievna,’ he answered, and a melancholy and serious expression suddenly came over his face.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was telling his sister-in-law his joke about divorce.

‘The wreath wants setting straight,’ she answered, not hearing him.

‘What a pity she’s lost her looks so,’ Countess Nordston said to Madame Lvova. ‘Still he’s not worth her little finger, is he?’

‘Oh, I like him so—not because he’s my future beau-frere,’ answered Madame Lvova. ‘And how well he’s behaving! It’s so difficult, too, to look well in such a position, not to be ridiculous. And he’s not ridiculous, and not affected; one can see he’s moved.’

‘You expected it, I suppose?’

‘Almost. She always cared for him.’

‘Well, we shall see which of them will step on the rug first. I warned Kitty.’

‘It will make no difference,’ said Madame Lvova; ‘we’re all obedient wives; it’s in our family.’

‘Oh, I stepped on the rug before Vassily on purpose. And you, Dolly?’

Dolly stood beside them; she heard them, but she did not answer. She was deeply moved. The tears stood in her eyes, and she could not have spoken without crying. She was rejoicing over Kitty and Levin; going back in thought to her own wedding, she glanced at the radiant figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgot all the present, and remembered only her own innocent love. She recalled not herself only, but all her women-friends and acquaintances. She thought of them on the one day of their triumph, when they had stood like Kitty under the wedding crown, with love and hope and dread in their hearts, renouncing the past, and stepping forward into the mysterious future. Among the brides that came back to her memory, she thought too of her darling Anna, of whose proposed divorce she had just been hearing. And she had stood just as innocent in orange flowers and bridal veil. And now? ‘It’s terribly strange,’ she said to herself. It was not merely the sisters, the women-friends and female relations of the bride who were following every detail of the ceremony. Women who were quite strangers, mere spectators, were watching it excitedly, holding their breath, in fear of losing a single movement or expression of the bride and bridegroom, and angrily not answering, often not hearing, the remarks of the callous men, who kept making joking or irrelevant observations.

‘Why has she been crying? Is she being married against her will?’

‘Against her will to a fine fellow like that? A prince, isn’t he?’

‘Is that her sister in the white satin? Just listen how the deacon booms out, ‘And fearing her husband.’’

‘Are the choristers from Tchudovo?’

‘No, from the Synod.’

‘I asked the footman. He says he’s going to take her home to his country place at once. Awfully rich, they say. That’s why she’s being married to him.’

‘No, they’re a well-matched pair.’

‘I say, Marya Vassilievna, you were making out those fly-away crinolines were not being worn. Just look at her in the puce dress—an ambassador’s wife they say she is—how her skirt bounces out from side to side!’

‘What a pretty dear the bride is—like a lamb decked with flowers! Well, say what you will, we women feel for our sister.’

Such were the comments in the crowd of gazing women who had succeeded in slipping in at the church doors.