Levin, guilty and ashamed, yet comforted, went back to his hotel. His brother, Darya Alexandrovna and Stepan Arkadyich, all fully dressed, were already waiting for him, to bless him with an icon. There was no time to linger. Darya Alexandrovna still had to go home to pick up her pomaded and curled son, who was to carry the icon for the bride.5 Then one carriage had to be sent for the best man and another had to be sent back to pick up Sergei Ivanovich ... Generally, there were a number of quite complicated considerations. One thing was beyond doubt - that they could not dawdle because it was already half-past six.
The blessing with the icon did not turn out well. Stepan Arkadyich assumed a comically solemn pose standing next to his wife, took the icon and, after telling Levin to bow to the ground, blessed him with a kind and mocking smile and kissed him three times. Darya Alexandrovna did the same, then hastened to leave at once and again became confused about the projected itineraries for the carriages.
‘Well, here’s what we’ll do: you go and fetch him in our carriage, and Sergei Ivanovich, if he will be so kind, can go and then send the carriage back.’
‘Why, I’ll be very glad to.’
‘And we’ll go with him now. Have your things been sent?’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Yes,’ replied Levin, and he told Kuzma to prepare his clothes.
III
A crowd of people, especially women, surrounded the church which was lit up for the wedding. Those who had not managed to get into the middle crowded around the windows, shoving, arguing and looking through the grilles.
More than twenty carriages had already been ranged along the street by policemen. A police officer, disdainful of the frost, stood at the entrance in his dazzling uniform. More carriages kept driving up, and ladies in flowers, picking up the trains of their dresses, or men removing their caps or black hats, entered the church. Inside the church itself, both lustres were already lit as well as all the candles by the icons. The golden glow on the red background of the iconostasis,6 the gilded carvings of the icon cases, the silver of the chandeliers and candle stands, the flagstones of the floor, the rugs, the banners up by the choirs, the steps of the ambo, the blackened old books, the cassocks and surplices - everything was flooded with light. To the right side of the heated church,7 in the crowd of tailcoats and white ties, of uniforms and brocades, velvet, satin, hair, flowers, bared shoulders and arms and long gloves, there was subdued but lively talk, echoing strangely in the high cupola. Each time the door creaked open, the talking in the crowd hushed and everyone turned, expecting to see the bride and bridegroom enter. But the door had already opened more than ten times, and each time it was either a latecomer who joined the circle of invited guests to the right, or a spectator who had tricked or cajoled the police officer into letting her join the crowd of strangers to the left. The relatives and the strangers had already gone through all the phases of expectation.
At first it was supposed that the bride and bridegroom would come at any moment and no significance was ascribed to the delay. Then they began glancing more and more often at the door, talking about whether something might not have happened. Then the delay became awkward, and the relatives and guests tried to pretend that they were not thinking about the bridegroom but were taken up with their own conversations.
The protodeacon, as if to remind people of the value of his time, kept coughing impatiently, making the glass in the windows rattle. From the choir came the sounds now of voices warming up, now of bored singers blowing their noses. The priest was constantly sending the beadle or the deacon to see if the bridegroom had come and, in his purple cassock and embroidered belt, came out of the side door more and more often in expectation of the bridegroom. Finally one of the ladies, looking at her watch, said: ‘It is odd, though!’ and all the guests became agitated and began to voice their astonishment and displeasure. One of the groomsmen went to find out what had happened. Kitty, all the while, had long since been quite ready, in a white dress, a long veil and a coronet of orange blossoms, and stood with her sponsor and sister Natalie in the reception room of the Shcherbatsky house, looking out of the window, waiting in vain for word from her best man that the bridegroom had arrived at the church.
Levin, meanwhile, in his trousers but with no waistcoat or tailcoat, was pacing up and down his room, constantly thrusting himself out of the door and looking into the corridor. But the one he was expecting was not to be seen in the corridor, and, coming back in despair and throwing up his hands, he addressed the calmly smoking Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Has any man ever been in such a terribly idiotic position!’ he said.
