Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Five/Chapter 4
corridor, and in his horror and despair imagining what Kitty might be thinking all this time.
Finally the guilty Kuzma rushed into the room all out of breath, with the shirt in his hand.
"I got there just in time, as they were carrying off the trunks!" he exclaimed.
In three minutes Levin rushed through the corridor, without daring to look at his watch, for fear of increasing his agony of mind.
"You can't change anything," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a smile, following leisurely. "I told you it would come out all right."
CHAPTER IV
"Here they come! — There he is! — Which one? Is it the youngest? Just look at her! Poor little matushka, more dead than alive!" was murmured through the crowd, as Levin, having met the bride at the entrance, came into the church with her.
Stepan Arkadyevitch told his wife the reason of the delay, and a smile passed over the congregation as it was whispered about. Levin neither saw any one nor anything, but kept his eyes fixed on his bride.
Every one said that she had grown very homely during these last days, and certainly she did not look so pretty under her bridal wreath as usual; but such was not Levin's opinion. He looked at her high coiffure, with the long white veil attached, and white flowers, at her high plaited collar encircling her slender neck in a peculiarly maidenly fashion, and just showing it a little in front, — her remarkably graceful figure; and she seemed more beautiful to him than ever. But it was not because the flowers or her veil or her Paris gown added anything to her beauty, but because of the expression of her lovely face, her eyes, her lips, with their innocent sincerity, preserved in spite of all this adornment.
"I was beginning to think that you had made up your mind to run away," she said to him with a smile.
"What happened to me was so absurd that I am ashamed to tell you about it," he replied, reddening, and he was compelled to turn to Sergyeï Ivanovitch, who came up at that moment.
"The tale of the shirt is a good one," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch, throwing back his head with a laugh.
"Yes, yes," replied Levin, without understanding a word which had been said.
"Well, Kostia, now is the time to make a serious decision," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pretending to look greatly scared. "The question is a grave one, and you must appreciate its full importance. I have been asked whether the candles shall be new ones, or those that have been partly burned; the difference is ten rubles," he added, pursing his lips in a smile. "I have decided about it, but I am afraid that you will not approve of it."
Levin knew that there was some joke about it, but he could not smile.
"What will you decide on? new ones, or old ones? — that is the question."
"Yes, yes; new ones."
"Well, I am very glad. The question is settled," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Of how little importance a man is at such a time as this!" he murmured to Chirikof, while Levin drew near to his bride, after looking at her in a bewildered way.
"Notice, Kitty, who first sets foot on the carpet!" said the Countess Nordstone, stepping up to her. — "You look your best," she added, addressing Levin.
"Are you frightened?" asked Marya Dmitrievna, an old aunt.
"You aren't cold, are you? You look pale. Bend forward a moment," said Madame Lvova, raising her beautiful round arms to repair some disarrangement of her sister's flowers.
Dolly came up, and tried to say something; but she could not speak, and burst into tears and laughed unnaturally.
Kitty looked at those around her as absent-mindedly as Levin.
During this time the officiating clergymen had put on their sacerdotal robes, and the priest, accompanied by the deacon, came to the lectern placed at the entrance of the sacred doors. The priest addressed a few words to Levin; but Levin failed to understand what he said.
"Take the bride's hand and go forward," whispered his best man to him.
For a long time he was unable to make out what was expected of him. For a long time they tried to coach him and were ready to give it up, because he did the opposite of what he was told. Finally, he comprehended that he was to take Kitty's right hand with his right hand, without changing his position. When at last he took his bride by her hand in the proper way, the priest advanced a few steps, and stopped in front of the lectern. The relatives and invited guests followed the young couple with a murmur of voices and a rustling of trains. Some one stooped down to arrange the bride's train; in the church, a silence so profound reigned that the drops of wax could be heard falling from the candles.
The old priest, in a calotte, his white hair shining like silver, drawn back behind his ears, drew forth his little wrinkled hands from beneath his heavy silver chasuble, ornamented with a cross of gold, approached the lectern, and turned over the leaves of the missal.
Stepan Arkadyevitch came softly and spoke in his ear, made a sign to Levin, and then stepped back.
The priest hghted two candles decorated with flowers, and, holding them slanting in his left hand, so that the wax slowly fell from them, turned toward the young couple. It was the same old man who had heard Levin's confession. He looked at the bride and bridegroom out of his sad, weary eyes, and then, with a sigh, blessed Levin with his right hand; then, with especial tenderness, placed his fingers on Kitty's bended head, gave them the candles, and taking the censer moved quietly away.
"Is this all real?" thought Levin, and he glanced at his bride. He looked down somewhat from above on her profile, and by the motion of her lips and her eye brows he knew that she felt his look. She did not raise her head; but the high-plaited collar which reached to her little pink ear trembled a little. He saw that she was stifling a sigh, and her hand, imprisoned in its long glove, trembled as it held the candle.
The whole affair of the shirt, his late arrival, his conversation with his relatives and friends, their displeasure, his ridiculous position, — everything at once vanished from his memory, and he was conscious of a mixed feeling of terror and joy.
The archdeacon, a tall, handsome man, his hair curling all around his head and wearing a stikhar, or surplice, of silver cloth, came briskly forward, and with the customary gesture raised his stole with two fingers, and stopped before the priest.
"Bless us, O Lord!"[1] slowly, one after the other, rocking the atmosphere into billows of sound, echoed the solemn syllables.
"May the Lord bless you now and through all ages," replied the old priest in a sweet and musical voice, still turning over the leaves.
And the response, chanted by the invisible choir, filled the church to the very roof of the vault with a deep, full sound, which increased, then ceased for a moment, and softly died away.
They prayed as usual for the eternal repose and welfare of their souls, for the synod, and the emperor, and then for the servants of God, Konstantin and Yekaterina, that day about to wed.
"Let us pray the Lord to send them His love. His peace, and His aid," the whole church seemed to say in the voice of the archdeacon.
Levin listened to these words, and was impressed by them.
"How did they know that aid was exactly what I need? Yes, aid. What can I know, what can I do, without aid?" he thought, recalling his recent doubts and fears.
When the deacon had ended the liturgy, the priest, with a book in his hand, turned toward the bridal couple: —
"O God Eternal, who unitest by an indissoluble bond those who are separate," he read, in a strong melodious voice, "Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca, and showest Thy mercy to their descendants, bless also these Thy servants, Konstantin and Yekaterina, and pour forth Thy benefits upon them. Because Thou art a merciful and beneficent God, we offer Thee the glory! To the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ...."
"Amen," again chanted the invisible choir.
"'Who unitest by an indissoluble bond those who are separate!' How those profound words respond to what one feels at such a time! Does she understand it as I do?" thought Levin.
And looking down he gazed into her eyes.
From the expression of Kitty's face he concluded that she did feel it as he did; but he was mistaken: she scarcely comprehended the words of the service, and during the time of the espousal did not even hear them. She could not hear them or comprehend them, so powerful was the single feeling which filled her heart and kept increasing all the time. This feeling was one of delight at the perfect fulfilment of what had been taking place in her heart during the past month and a half, and during those six weeks had made her happy and restless by turns.
From that day when, in her cinnamon-colored gown, in the "hall" of their house on the Arbatsky, she had silently approached Levin to give herself wholly to him, from that day, from that moment, she felt a complete rupture had been made with all her past life, and another existence, new and unknown, without, however, changing her outward life, had begun. These six weeks had been at once a very happy and very trying time. Her whole life, her hopes and desires, were all concentrated on this man, whom she did not even yet fully understand, to whom she was united by a sentiment which she understood still less, and which attracted her and repelled her by turns, and at the same time she had gone on living in the conditions of her former life. Living this old life, she was horrified at herself, at her complete and invincible indifference toward her whole past: to things, to habits, even to her relatives, whom she loved, and who loved her, her mother, who was pained by her indifference, and her gentle father, whom she had loved more than any one else in the world. At one moment she was horrified at this indifference, at the next she was filled with joy at that which had brought her to such a feeling. She could not imagine or desire anything except life with this man; but this new life had not yet begun, and she could form no definite idea of it. It was only an expectation, a fear and joy of something new and unknown. And now this expectation, as well as her remorse for not regretting the past, were at an end, and the new life was beginning. This new and unknown future could not fail to be alarming, but whether it was alarming or not, it was only the fulfilment of what had taken place in her soul six weeks before, only the sanctification of what had been taking place in her soul for a long time.
The priest, turning to the lectern again, with difficulty took off Kitty's little ring, and passed it as far as the first joint of Levin's finger.
"I unite thee, Konstantin, servant of God, to Yekaterina, servant of God;" and he repeated the same formula in placing a large ring on Kitty's delicate little rosy finger, pathetic in its weakness.
The bridal pair tried to understand what was expected of them, but each time made a mistake, and the priest corrected them in a low voice. At last the priest, blessing them with his fingers, again gave Kitty the large ring, and Levin the small one, and again they got confused, and twice passed the rings from hand to hand, failing to interchange them as they should have done.
Dolly Chirikof and Stepan Arkadyevitch stepped out to assist them in their difficulty. The people around them smiled and whispered; but the tenderly solemn expression on the faces of the young couple did not change. On the contrary, even when they were blundering with the rings, they looked more serious and solemn than before; and the smile on Stepan Arkadyevitch's face died away, as he whispered to them that they were to put on their own rings. It seemed to him that a smile might be offensive to them.
"O Thou who, from the beginning of the world, hast created man, male and female," continued the priest, after the ceremony of the rings, "and hast given to man the woman to be his aid and delight, therefore, O Thou, our Lord God, who hast given Thy blessing to Thy chosen, to Thy servants, our fathers, to Thine inheritance, do Thou bless Thy servants Konstantin and Yekaterina, and confirm their nuptials in faith and concord and truth and love!"
Levin's breast heaved; disobedient tears filled his eyes. He kept feeling more and more that all his thoughts on marriage, his visions of how he should dispose his life, had hitherto been infantile, and that there was something that had never been comprehensible to him; and now he understood its meaning less than ever, although he was now wholly in its power.
- ↑ Bla-go-slo-vi vla-duika!