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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
way 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 for-
ward, 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.
“Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be,” the little old priest answered in a submissive, piping
voice, still fingering something at the lectern. And the full chorus of the
unseen choir rose up, filling the whole church, from the windows to the
vaulted roof, with broad waves of melody. It grew stronger, rested for
an instant, and slowly died away.
They prayed, as they always do, for peace from on high and for
salvation, for the Holy Synod, and for the Tsar; they prayed, too, for the
servants of God, Konstantin and Ekaterina, now plighting their troth.
“Vouchsafe to them love made perfect, peace and help, O Lord, we
beseech Thee,” the whole church seemed to breathe with the voice of
the head deacon.
Levin heard the words, and they impressed him. “How did they
guess that it is help, just help that one wants?” he thought, recalling all
his fears and doubts of late. “What do I know? what can I do in this
fearful business,” he thought, “without help? Yes, it is help I want
now.”
When the deacon had finished the prayer for the Imperial family,
the priest turned to the bridal pair with a book: “Eternal God, that
joinest together in love them that were separate,” he read in a gentle,
piping voice: “who hast ordained the union of holy wedlock that cannot
be set asunder, Thou who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and their
descendants, according to Thy Holy Covenant; bless Thy servants,
Konstantin and Ekaterina, leading them in the path of all good works.
For gracious and merciful art Thou, our Lord, and glory be to Thee, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever shall be.”
“Amen!” the unseen choir sent rolling again upon the air.
“ ‘Joinest together in love them that were separate.’ What deep
meaning in those words, and how they correspond with what one feels
at this moment,” thought Levin. “Is she feeling the same as I?”
And looking round, he met her eyes, and from their expression he
concluded that she was understanding it just as he was. But this was
a mistake; she almost completely missed the meaning of the words of
the service; she had not heard them, in fact. She could not listen to
them and take them in, so strong was the one feeling that filled her
breast and grew stronger and stronger. That feeling was joy at the
completion of the process that for the last month and a half had been
going on in her soul, and had during those six weeks been a joy and a
torture to her. On the day when in the drawing room of the house in
Arbaty Street she had gone up to him in her brown dress, and given