Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 4
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.
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