Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 4
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, standup,
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.
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