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bride and bridegroom come in. But the door had opened more than
ten times, and each time it was either a belated guest or guests, who
joined the circle of the invited on the right, or a spectator, who had
eluded or softened the police officer, and went to join the crowd of
outsiders on the left. Both the guests and the outside public had by
now passed through all the phases of anticipation.
At first they imagined that the bride and bridegroom would arrive
immediately, and attached no importance at all to their being late.
Then they began to look more and more often towards the door, and to
talk of whether anything could have happened. Then the long delay
began to be positively discomforting, and relations and guests tried to
look as if they were not thinking of the bridegroom but were engrossed
in conversation.
The head deacon, as though to remind them of the value of his
time, coughed impatiently, making the window-panes quiver in their
frames. In the choir the bored choristers could be heard trying their
voices and blowing their noses. The priest was continually sending
first the beadle and then the deacon to find out whether the bride-
groom had not come, more and more often he went himself, in a lilac
vestment and an embroidered sash, to the side door, expecting to see
the bridegroom. At last one of the ladies, glancing at her watch, said,
“It really is strange, though!” and all the guests became uneasy and
began loudly expressing their wonder and dissatisfaction. One of the
bridegroom’s best men went to find out what had happened. Kitty
meanwhile had long ago been quite ready, and in her white dress and
long veil and wreath of orange blossoms she was standing in the draw-
ing-room of the Shtcherbatskys’ house with her sister, Madame Lvova,
who was her bridal-mother. She was looking out of the window, and
had been for over half an hour anxiously expecting to hear from her
best man that her bridegroom was at the church.
Levin meanwhile, in his trousers, but without his coat and waist-
coat, was walking to and fro in his room at the hotel, continually putting
his head out of the door and looking up and down the corridor. But in
the corridor there was no sign of the person he was looking for and he
came back in despair, and frantically waving his hands addressed Stepan
Arkadyevitch, who was smoking serenely.
“Was ever a man in such a fearful fool’s position?” he said.
“Yes, it is stupid,” Stepan Arkadyevitch asserted, smiling sooth-
ingly. “But don’t worry, it’ll be brought directly.”
“No, what is to be done!” said Levin, with smothered fury. “And
these fools of open waistcoats! Out of the question!” he said, looking at
the crumpled front of his shirt. “And what if the things have been
taken on to the railway station!” he roared in desperation.
“Then you must put on mine.”
“I ought to have done so long ago, if at all.”
“It’s not nice to look ridiculous.... Wait a bit! it will come round.”
The point was that when Levin asked for his evening suit, Kouzma,
his old servant, had brought him the coat, waistcoat, and everything
that was wanted.
“But the shirt!” cried Levin.
“You’ve got a shirt on,” Konzma answered, with a placid smile.
Kouzma had not thought of leaving out a clean shirt, and on receiv-
ing instructions to pack up everything and send it round to the
Shtcherbatskys’ house, from which the young people were to set out
the same evening, he had done so, packing everything but the dress
suit. The shirt worn since the morning was crumpled and out of the
question with the fashionable open waistcoat. It was a long way to
send to the Shtcherbatskys’. They sent out to buy a shirt. The servant