Part Five: Chapter 3

by Leo Tolstoy

　　A crowd of people, principally women, was thronging round thechurch lighted up for the wedding. Those who had not succeededin getting into the main entrance were crowding about thewindows, pushing, wrangling, and peeping through the gratings.

　　More than twenty carriages had already been drawn up in ranksalong the street by the police. A police officer, regardless ofthe frost, stood at the entrance, gorgeous in his uniform. Morecarriages were continually driving up, and ladies wearing flowersand carrying their trains, and men taking off their helmets orblack hats kept walking into the church. Iside the church bothlusters were already lighted, and all the candles before the holypictures. The gilt on the red ground of the holy picture-stand,and the gilt relief on the pictures, and the silver of thelusters and candlesticks, and the stones of the floor, and therugs, and the banners above in the choir, and the steps of thealtar, and the old blackened books, and the cassocks andsurplices--all were flooded with light. On the right side of thewarm church, in the crowd of frock coats and white ties, uniformsand broadcloth, velvet, satin, hair and flowers, bare shouldersand arms and long gloves, there was discreet but livelyconversation that echoed strangely in the high cupola. Everytime there was heard the creak of the opened door theconversation in the crowd died away, and everybody looked roundexpecting to see the bride and bridegroom come in. But the doorhad opened more than ten times, and each time it was either abelated guest or guests, who joined the circle of the invited onthe right, or a spectator, who had eluded or softened the policeofficer, and went to join the crowd of outsiders on the left.Both the guests and the outside public had by now passed throughall the phases of anticipation.

　　At first they imagined that the bride and bridegroom would arriveimmediately, and attached no importance at all to their beinglate. Then they began to look more and more often towards thedoor, and to talk of whether anything could have happened. Thenthe long delay began to be positively discomforting, andrelations and guests tried to look as if they were not thinkingof the bridegroom but were engrossed in conversation.

　　The head deacon, as though to remind them of the value of histime, coughed impatiently, making the window-panes quiver intheir frames. In the choir the bored choristers could be heardtrying their voices and blowing their noses. The priest wascontinually sending first the beadle and then the deacon to findout whether the bridegroom had not come, more and more often hewent himself, in a lilac vestment and an embroidered sash, to theside door, expecting to see the bridegroom. At last one of theladies, glancing at her watch, said, "It really is strange,though!" and all the guests became uneasy and began loudlyexpressing their wonder and dissatisfaction. One of thebridegroom's best men went to find out what had happened. Kittymeanwhile had long ago been quite ready, and in her white dressand long veil and wreath of orange blossoms she was standing inthe drawing-room of the Shtcherbatskys' house with her sister,Madame Lvova, who was her bridal-mother. She was looking out ofthe window, and had been for over half an hour anxiouslyexpecting to hear from her best man that her bridegroom was atthe church.

　　Levin meanwhile, in his trousers, but without his coat andwaistcoat, was walking to and fro in his room at the hotel,continually putting his head out of the door and looking up anddown the corridor. But in the corridor there was no sign of theperson he was looking for and he came back in despair, andfrantically waving his hands addressed Stepan Arkadyevitch, whowas smoking serenely.

　　"Was ever a man in such a fearful fool's position?" he said.

　　"Yes, it is stupid," Stepan Arkadyevitch asserted, smilingsoothingly. "But don't worry, it'll be brought directly."

　　"No, what is to be done!" said Levin, with smothered fury. "Andthese fools of open waistcoats! Out of the question!" he said,looking at the crumpled front of his shirt. "And what if thethings have been taken on to the railway station!" he roared indesperation.

　　"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 comeround."

　　The point was that when Levin asked for his evening suit, Kouzma,his old servant, had brought him the coat, waistcoat, andeverything 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 onreceiving instructions to pack up everything and send it round tothe Shtcherbatskys' house, from which the young people were toset out the same evening, he had done so, packing everything butthe dress suit. The shirt worn since the morning was crumpledand out of the question with the fashionable open waistcoat. Itwas a long way to send to the Shtcherbatskys'. They sent out tobuy a shirt. The servant came back; everything was shut up--itwas Sunday. They sent to Stepan Arkadyevitch's and brought ashirt--it was impossibly wide and short. They sent finally tothe Shtcherbatskys' to unpack the things. The bridegroom wasexpected at the church while he was pacing up and down his roomlike a wild beast in a cage, peeping out into the corridor, andwith horror and despair recalling what absurd things he had saidto Kitty and what she might be thinking now.

　　At last the guilty Kouzma flew panting into the room with theshirt.

　　"Only just in time. They were just lifting it into the van,"said Kouzma.

　　Three minutes later Levin ran full speed into the corridor, notlooking at his watch for fear of aggravating his sufferings.

　　"You won't help matters like this," said Stepan Arkadyevitch witha smile, hurrying with more deliberation after him. "It willcome round, it will come round...I tell you."