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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.
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 ex-
pected 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 some-
thing, 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