Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 6
Chapter 6
WHEN the ceremony of plighting troth was over, the beadle spread before the
lectern in the middle of the church a piece of pink silken stuff, the choir sang
a complicated and elaborate psalm, in which the bass and tenor sang responses to
one another, and the priest turning round pointed the bridal pair to the pink silk rug.
Though both had often heard a great deal about the saying that the one who steps
first on the rug will be the head of the house, neither Levin nor Kitty were capable
of recollecting it, as they took the few steps towards it. They did not hear the loud
remarks and disputes that followed, some maintaining he had stepped on first, and
others that both had stepped on together.
After the customary questions, whether they desired to enter upon matrimony,
and whether they were pledged to anyone else, and their answers, which sounded
strange to themselves, a new ceremony began. Kitty listened to the words of the
prayer, trying to make out their meaning, but she could not. The feeling of triumph
and radiant happiness flooded her soul more and more as the ceremony went on,
and deprived her of all power of attention.
They prayed: “Endow them with continence and fruitfulness, and vouchsafe that
their hearts may rejoice looking upon their sons and daughters.” They alluded to
God’s creation of a wife from Adam’s rib “and for this cause a man shall leave father
and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh,” and that “this
is a great mystery“; they prayed that God would make them fruitful and bless them,
like Isaac and Rebecca, Joseph, Moses and Zipporah, and that they might look upon
their children’s children. “That’s all splendid,” thought Kitty, catching the words,
“all that’s just as it should be,” and a smile of happiness, unconsciously reflected in
everyone who looked at her, beamed on her radiant face.
“Put it on quite,” voices were heard urging when the priest had put on the wedding
crowns and Shtcherbatsky, his hand shaking in its three-button glove, held the
crown high above her head.
“Put it on!” she whispered, smiling.
Levin looked round at her, and was struck by the joyful radiance on her face, and
unconsciously her feeling infected him. He too, like her felt glad and happy.
They enjoyed hearing the epistle read, and the roll of the head deacon’s voice at
the last verse, awaited with such impatience by the outside public. They enjoyed
drinking out of the shallow cup of warm red wine and water, and they were still
more pleased when the priest, flinging back his stole and taking both their hands in
his, led them round the lectern to the accompaniment of bass voices chanting “Glory
to God.”
Shtcherbatsky and Tchirikov, supporting the crowns and stumbling over the
bride’s train, smiling too and seeming delighted at something, were at one moment
left behind, at the next treading on the bridal pair as the priest came to a halt. The
spark of joy kindled in Kitty seemed to have infected everyone in the church. It
seemed to Levin that the priest and the deacon too wanted to smile just as he did.
Taking the crowns off their heads the priest read the last prayer and congratulated
the young people. Levin looked at Kitty, and he had never before seen her look as
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