Chapter 2

 

 

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ON his wedding-day Levin, according to custom — the Princess and Dolly insisted on his strictly conforming to custom — did not see his bride, and dined at his hotel with three bachelors who happened to drop in. Sergius Ivanich, Katavasov, an old fellow-student at the university and now a professor of Natural Science, whom Levin had chanced to meet in the street and induced to come, and Chirikov, his best man, a Moscow magistrate, and a bear-hunting comrade of Levin’s. The dinner was a very merry one. Sergius Ivanich was in the best of spirits and was tickled by Katavasov’s originality. Katavasov, feeling that his originality was observed and appreciated, showed it off. Chirikov gaily and good-naturedly backed up every one else.

 

‘There now!’ said Katavasov with a drawl, a habit he had fallen into when lecturing. ‘What a talented fellow our friend Constantine Dmitrich used to be! I am speaking of one who is not with us, because he is no more. In those days he loved science. When he left the university he had human interests; but now half his talents are bent on self-deception, and the other half toward justification of that deception.’

 

‘I have never come across a more decided foe of marriage than yourself,’ remarked Sergius Ivanich.

 

‘No. I am no foe of marriage, but I believe in division of labour! Persons who can do nothing else must make men, and the others must help them to culture and happiness. That is how I look at it. There are hosts of aspirants who aim at mixing those two professions, but I am not one of them!’

 

‘How delighted I shall be when I hear of your falling in love!’ said Levin. ‘Pray invite me to your wedding!’

 

‘I am in love already.’

 

‘Yes, with a mollusc! Do you know,’ said Levin, turning to his brother, ‘Katavasov is writing a work on nutriment and . . .’

 

‘Oh, don’t confuse matters! What does it matter what I write about? The fact is, I really do love molluscs.’

 

‘But they would not prevent you loving a wife!’

 

‘They would not, but the wife would.’

 

‘Why?’

 

‘Oh, you’ll soon find out! Now you like farming, sport. . . . Well, you just wait and see!’

 

‘You know, Arkhip came to-day to say that in Prudno there are lots of elk and two bears,’ said Chirikov.

 

‘Well, you’ll have to get them without me.’

 

‘There you are!’ said Sergius Ivanich. ‘Good-bye to bear-hunting in future! Your wife won’t allow it.’

 

Levin smiled. The idea that his wife would not allow it seemed so agreeable that he was prepared to forgo the pleasure of ever setting eyes on a bear again.

 

‘All the same, it’s a pity that those two bears will be killed without you. Do you remember that time in Hapilovka? What fine sport we had!’ said Chirikov.

 

Levin did not wish to deprive him of the illusion that somewhere there could be something good without her, therefore he said nothing.

 

‘This custom of taking leave of celibacy is not without its reason,’ said Sergius Ivanich. ‘However happy you may be, you can’t help regretting your freedom.’

 

‘Now confess that you feel like the bridegroom in Gogol’s play who jumped out of the window?’ teased Chirikov.

 

‘Of course he feels so, but won’t own up,’ said Katavasov, and burst out laughing.

 

‘Well, the window is open. . . . Let us be off to Tver. One is a she-bear. We can go straight for the lair. Yes, let’s catch the five o’clock train! And leave them to do as they please here,’ said Chirikov, smiling.

 

‘I am ready to swear I can’t find in my soul a trace of regret for my freedom,’ said Levin, with a smile.

 

‘Ah, but your soul is in such chaos at the present moment that you are unable to find anything there! Wait till you’ve settled down a bit, then you’ll find it,’ said Katavasov.

 

‘No, I should even now have some consciousness that despite my feelings’ (he did not wish in Katavasov’s presence to use the word love) ‘and my happiness I was yet sorry to lose my freedom. But quite on the contrary, it is precisely of this loss of freedom that I am glad!’

 

‘Very bad! A hopeless case!’ said Katavasov. ‘Well, let us drink to his recovery, or let us wish that at least a hundredth part of his dreams come true. Even that will be such joy as was never seen on earth!’

 

Soon after dinner the visitors left to get ready for the wedding.

 

When he was alone, Levin, thinking over the remarks of the three bachelors, once more asked himself whether there was in his soul any of that regret for his freedom that they had been speaking about. The question made him smile. ‘Freedom? What is the good of freedom? Happiness consists only in loving and desiring: in wishing her wishes and in thinking her thoughts, which means having no freedom whatever; that is happiness!’

 

‘But do I know her thoughts, wishes, or feelings?’ a voice suddenly whispered. The smile faded from his face and he pondered. And all at once a strange sensation came over him. He was possessed by fear and doubt, doubt of everything.

 

‘Supposing she does not love me? Supposing she is only marrying me just to get married? Supposing she does not herself know what she is doing?’ he asked himself. ‘She might bethink herself and only when she is already married find out that she does not and never could love me. . . .’ And strange and most evil thoughts about her came into his mind. He became jealous of Vronsky just as he had been the year before, as if it had been but yesterday that he saw her with him. He suspected that she had not told him the whole truth. Suddenly he jumped up. ‘No, this won’t do!’ he said to himself despairingly. ‘I will go to her and tell her for the last time that we are now free, and that perhaps we had better keep so! Anything would be better than continual shame, misery, infidelity!’ With his heart full of despair and bitterness toward every one, toward himself and her, he left the hotel and went to her.

 

He found her in one of the back rooms. She was sitting on a trunk making some arrangements with one of the maids, sorting a pile of differently coloured dresses that hung over the backs of chairs or lay on the floor.

 

‘Oh!’ she cried when she saw him, and her face lit up with joy. ‘Why have you . . . ? Well, I . . . this is a surprise! And I am sorting my old dresses to give them away. . . .’

 

‘Ah, that is very nice,’ he said gloomily, with a glance at the maid.

 

‘You may go, Dunyasha. I will call you,’ said Kitty. ‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked as soon as the maid was gone. She had noticed his strange expression, at once excited and gloomy, and was seized with alarm.

 

‘Kitty, I am in torture! I cannot bear it alone,’ he cried in a despairing tone, standing before her and looking imploringly into her eyes. Already in her loving, truthful face he could read that what he was going to tell her would lead to nothing, yet he felt that he still wanted to hear her disavowal.

 

‘I have come to say that there is still time . . . All this business can still be put a stop to!’

 

‘What? I don’t understand in the least. What is the matter with you?’

 

‘What I have said a thousand times and cannot help thinking — that I am not worthy of you! It cannot be that you have agreed to marry me. Think it over . . . you have made a mistake. Think it well over! You cannot love me? . . . I . . . you’d better tell me . . .’he went on without looking at her. ‘I shall be unhappy, of course. Let them all say what they like: anything is better than the misfortune . . . Anyhow, it would be better now while there is still time!’

 

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, thoroughly frightened. ‘Do you mean you refuse . . . Why stop . . . ?’

 

‘Yes, if you don’t love me.’

 

‘Are you mad?’ she exclaimed, flushing with vexation; but his face was so piteous that she suppressed her vexation, and throwing the dresses on a chair sat down closer to him. ‘What are you thinking about? Tell me everything.’

 

‘I think you cannot love me. What could you love me for?’

 

‘O God, what can I do? . . .’ she cried, and began to weep.

 

‘Oh, what have I done!’ he exclaimed, and kneeling before her he began kissing her hands. When the Princess came in five minutes later she found them quite reconciled. Kitty had not only assured him that she loved him, but had even given him, in answer to his question, the reasons why. She told him she loved him because she completely understood him, because she knew that it was necessary for him to love, and that all that he loved was good. This seemed quite clear to him. When the Princess entered they were sitting side by side on the trunk, sorting the dresses and disputing because Kitty wanted to give Dunyasha the brown dress she had worn when Levin proposed to her, while he insisted that that dress should not be given to anyone and that she should give Dunyasha a blue one instead.

 

‘How is it you don’t understand? She is dark and it won’t suit her . . . I have considered it all.’

 

When the Princess heard why he had come, she grew angry half in fun and half in earnest, and told him to go home and dress and not to delay Kitty, whose hair had to be done by the hairdresser, due to arrive immediately.

 

‘She has scarcely eaten anything all these days and has grown quite plain; and here you come and upset her with your nonsense!’ said she. ‘Be off, be off my dear!’

 

Guilty and ashamed, but comforted, Levin returned to his hotel. His brother, Dolly, and Oblonsky, all in evening dress, were waiting to bless him with the icon. Dolly had to return home to fetch her son, who, his hair oiled and curled, was to drive in the bride’s carriage and hold an icon. Then a carriage had to be sent to fetch the groomsman, and another was to take Sergius Ivanich and return again. Altogether there were many complicated arrangements to consider. One thing was certain: there was no time to be lost, for it was already half-past six.

 

The Blessing was not a success. Oblonsky, standing in a comically-solemn attitude beside his wife, took the icon and told Levin to bow to the ground; then he blessed him, smiling a kindly amused smile, and kissed him three times. Dolly did the same, then she hurried away and again became confused about the arrangements for the carriages.

 

‘Then this is what we must do: you go and fetch him in our carriage, and Sergius Ivanich, if he will be so kind, will go first and will send the carriage back.’

 

‘Of course, I shall be very pleased!’

 

‘And we will follow immediately with him. . . . Have your trunks been sent off?’ inquired Oblonsky.

 

‘Yes, they have,’ replied Levin, and told Kuzma to get his things out that he might dress.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

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A CROWD of people, mostly women, had assembled outside the church which was brightly lit up for the wedding. Those who had arrived too late to get into the middle of the throng pressed round the windows, pushing and disputing and trying to peer in between the bars.

 

More than twenty carriages had already been ranged along the street by the mounted police. A police-officer, unmindful of the frost, stood at the entrance looking brilliant in his blue uniform. More carriages kept driving up, and now ladies with flowers in their hair got out, holding up their trains; or men appeared who doffed their military caps or black hats as they entered the church. Inside the building the candles in both chandeliers were already lit, as well as all the candles in front of the icons. The golden glitter on the crimson background of the iconostasis, the gilt ornaments of the icons, the silver of the chandeliers and candlesticks, the flagstones of the floor, the mats, the banners above the choir, the steps of the ambo, the ancient books black with age, the cassocks and surplices, were all inundated with light. On the right of the well-heated church a staid though animated conversation was going on amidst the swallow-tail coats, white ties, uniforms, brocades, velvets and satins, hair, flowers, bare shoulders and arms and long gloves — the sound of which re-echoed strangely from the high dome above. Every time the door creaked every one turned round, expecting to see the bride and bridegroom enter. But the door had opened more than ten times and each time it turned out to be a guest who had been detained and now joined the crowd on the right, or a spectator who had managed to deceive or soften the heart of the police officer and who joined the throng of strangers on the left; and both relatives and spectators had passed through every phase of anticipation.

 

At first they expected the bride and bridegroom to enter at any moment, and attached no importance to the delay. Then they turned more and more often toward the door, wondering whether anything had happened. At length the delay became awkward, and the friends and relatives tried to look as if they were not thinking about the bride and bridegroom but were absorbed in their conversations.

 

The archdeacon, as if to draw attention to the value of his time, coughed impatiently, making the windows vibrate. From the choir, growing weary of waiting, came the sound of voices being tried and the blowing of noses. The priest continually sent a chanter or deacon to see whether the bridegroom had arrived, and he himself, in his purple surplice with the embroidered girdle, went with increasing frequency to the side door in expectation of the bridegroom. At last one of the ladies looked at her watch and said, ‘Well, this is strange!’ and then all the guests became restless and expressed their surprise and dissatisfaction aloud. The best man went to find out what had occurred.

 

All this while Kitty, long since ready in her white dress, long veil, and crown of orange blossoms, stood with an old lady who was to accompany her and her sister, the Princess Lvova, at a window of the ball-room at the Shcherbatskys’, for the last half-hour vainly expecting her best man to come and announce that the bridegroom had reached the church.

 

Levin meanwhile, in trousers but without coat or waistcoat, was pacing up and down his room, perpetually putting his head out at the door and glancing up the corridor. But in the corridor there was nobody, and in despair he returned and addressed Oblonsky, who was quietly smoking.

 

‘Was ever a man in such a terribly idiotic position?’ he demanded.

 

‘Yes, it is stupid,’ Oblonsky concurred with a soothing smile. ‘But don’t worry, it will be here in a minute.’

 

‘Oh, how can I help it?’ said Levin with suppressed fury. ‘And these idiotic open waistcoats — it’s impossible!’ He glanced at his crumpled shirt-front. ‘And suppose the things have already gone to the station!’ he exclaimed in despair.

 

‘Then you’ll have to wear mine.’

 

‘I ought to have done that long ago.’

 

‘It is better not to look ridiculous. Wait! It will all “shape itself”!’

 

The fact of the matter was that when Levin told his old servant Kuzma to get his things ready, Kuzma had duly brought his dress coat, waistcoat and what else he considered necessary.

 

‘But the shirt?’ Levin exclaimed.

 

‘You’ve got it on,’ Kuzma replied with a quiet smile.

 

He had not thought of leaving out a clean shirt, and having been told to pack everything and send it to the Shcherbatskys’, whence they were to start that evening, he had done so and had left out only the dress suit. The shirt Levin had been wearing since the morning was crumpled and quite unfit to wear with the fashionable low-cut waistcoat. It was too far to send to the Shcherbatskys’, so they sent out to buy one; but as it was Sunday all the shops had closed early. They sent for one of Oblonsky’s, but it was much too wide and too short. They were obliged to send to the Shcherbatskys’ after all, and the things had to be unpacked. Meantime in the church every one was waiting for the bridegroom; while he was pacing up and down like a caged beast, looking despairingly along the corridor, remembering all he had said to Kitty and wondering what she must be thinking now.

 

At last the guilty Kuzma, quite out of breath, rushed in with the shirt.

 

‘Only just in time — they were hoisting the trunk into the cart,’ he gasped.

 

Three minutes later Levin, not looking at the clock to avoid upsetting himself still more, ran as fast as he could down the corridor.

 

‘That won’t help matters,’ remarked Oblonsky, smiling, and following without haste. ‘It will all “shape itself,” all “shape itself” . . . I assure you!’

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

 

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‘HERE they are! There he is! Which one? Is it the younger one? And look at her, poor dear! More dead than alive!’ people in the crowd were saying as Levin met his bride at the door and entered the church with her.

 

Oblonsky told his wife the reason of the delay, and the guests smiled and whispered to one another. Levin saw no one and nothing; he did not take his eyes off his bride.

 

Every one said she had grown plainer during the last few days, and in her bridal dress was nothing like so pretty as usual; but Levin thought otherwise. He looked at her hair dressed high beneath the long veil and white flowers, at the high frill that covered her long neck at the sides and showed it in front in a particularly maidenly way, and at her strikingly slender waist. He thought she was prettier than ever: not that those flowers, the veil, or the dress ordered from Paris enhanced her beauty in any way, but because, despite all the carefully planned richness of her attire, the look on her sweet face and lips was still that look of innocent truthfulness.

 

‘I thought you meant to run away,’ she said, smiling at him.

 

‘It was such a stupid thing that happened! I am ashamed to tell it,’ he said with a blush, and was obliged to turn round to the approaching Sergius Ivanich.

 

‘Nice story that, about your shirt!’ said Sergius Ivanich with a smile and shake of the head.

 

‘Yes, yes!’ answered Levin, unable to understand what was being said.

 

‘Now then, Kostya!’ said Oblonsky, feigning consternation. ‘You’ve got to decide an important point, and you’re in exactly the right frame of mind to appreciate its importance. I have been asked whether you will have new candles or used ones to hold? The difference is ten roubles,’ he added, puckering his lips into a smile. ‘I have settled it, but perhaps you will not be satisfied.’

 

Though he knew it was a joke, Levin could not smile.

 

‘Well then, is it to be fresh candles or used ones? That is the question!’

 

‘Yes, yes! Fresh ones.’

 

‘Well, I’m very glad that question is settled,’ said Oblonsky with a smile. ‘How stupid people do become under these circumstances!’ he went on, turning to Chirikov, when Levin with an absent-minded glance at him moved off toward his bride.

 

‘Kitty, mind you step first upon the mat!’ said Countess Nordston, coming up to them. ‘You are a fine fellow!’ she added, addressing Levin.

 

‘Aren’t you frightened?’ asked Kitty’s old aunt Mary Dmitrievna.

 

‘Are you cold? You look pale. Wait a moment, put your head down,’ said Kitty’s sister, Princess Lvova, and raising her plump, beautiful arms she adjusted the flowers on Kitty’s head.

 

Dolly advanced and was about to say something, but could not speak and began crying and laughing in an unnatural manner. Kitty gazed at everybody with a look as absent-minded as Levin’s.

 

Meanwhile the clergy put on their vestments and the priest and deacon came forward to the lectern that stood near the entrance doors. The priest turned to Levin and said something that Levin did not hear.

 

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

 

For a long time Levin could not be made to understand what he had to do, and they were a long while trying to set him right. Just as they were going to give it up because he would either use the wrong hand or else take her by the wrong one, he at last comprehended that he with his right hand, without changing his position, must take her by her right hand. When at last he had taken her hand properly, the priest went a few steps in front of them and halted at the lectern. The crowd of friends and relatives, their voices buzzing and the ladies’ trains rustling, moved after them. Some one stooped down to arrange the bride’s veil. The church became so quiet that the drops of wax were heard falling from the candles.

 

The old priest, with his sacerdotal headgear and his locks of grey hair, glistening like silver, combed back behind his ears, drew his small old hands out from beneath his vestments of heavy silver cloth with a large gold cross on the back, and began turning over some pages on the lectern.

 

Oblonsky stepped up cautiously, whispered something to him, made a sign to Levin, and stepped back again.

 

The priest lit two wax candles decorated with flowers, and holding them askew in his left hand so that the wax kept slowly dripping, turned to the young couple. It was the same priest who had heard Levin’s confession. He looked wearily and sadly at the bride and bridegroom, sighed, and disengaging his right hand from the vestments, held it up in blessing over the bridegroom, and then over the bride; only in his manner when he placed his fingers on Kitty’s bowed head there was a shade of tenderness. Then he gave them the candles, took the censer, and slowly stepped away from them.

 

‘Is it really true?’ thought Levin, and glanced round at his bride. He could see her profile slightly from above, and by the just perceptible movements of her lips and eyelashes he knew she was aware of his look. She did not turn, but her high frilled collar moved, rising to her pink little ear. He saw that a sigh had been suppressed within her breast and that the little hand in its long glove holding the candle trembled. All the worry about his shirt, his lateness, the conversation of their relatives, their displeasure at his ridiculous mishap, suddenly vanished from his mind and he felt happy though scared.

 

The handsome, tall senior deacon in a silver cloth alb, his curled hair parted down the middle, came briskly forward lifting his stole with a practised movement of two fingers, and stopped opposite the priest.

 

‘Bless us, Lord!’ slowly succeeding one another, and vibratingly resonant, came the solemn tones.

 

‘Blessed be our God, now and hereafter, for ever and ever!’ replied the old priest meekly, in a sing-song voice, continuing to turn something over on the lectern. Then, harmoniously filling the whole church from windows to vaulted roof, a full chord sung by the invisible choir rose, swelled, hung for a moment, and softly died away.

 

There were prayers as usual for the world above, for salvation, for the Synod, for the Emperor, and also for the servants of God that day wedded, Constantine and Catherine.

 

‘Let us pray to the Lord that He may send them perfect love, peace, and help!’ the whole church seemed to breathe with the senior deacon’s voice.

 

Levin listened to the words and was struck by them. ‘How did they find out that it is help, exactly help that I need?’ he wondered, remembering his late fears and doubts. ‘What do I know? What can I do in this awful matter without help? Help is exactly what I need now!’