Part Five: Chapter 5

by Leo Tolstoy

　　In the church there was all Moscow, all the friends andrelations; and during the ceremony of plighting troth, in thebrilliantly lighted church, there was an incessant flow ofdiscreetly subdued talk in the circle of gaily dressed women andgirls, and men in white ties, frockcoats, and uniforms. The talkwas principally kept up by the men, while the women were absorbedin watching every detail of the ceremony, which always means somuch to them.

　　In the little group nearest to the bride were her two sisters:Dolly, and the other one, the self-possessed beauty, MadameLvova, who had just arrived from abroad.

　　"Why is it Marie's in lilac, as bad as black, at a wedding?" saidMadame Korsunskaya.

　　"With her complexion, it's the one salvation," responded MadameTrubetskaya. "I wonder why they had the wedding in the evening?It's like shop-people..."

　　"So much prettier. I was married in the evening too..." answeredMadame Korsunskaya, and she sighed, remembering how charming shehad been that day, and how absurdly in love her husband was, andhow different it all was now.

　　"They say if anyone's best man more than ten times, he'll neverbe married. I wanted to be for the tenth time, but the post wastaken," said Count Siniavin to the pretty Princess Tcharskaya,who had designs on him.

　　Princess Tcharskaya only answered with a smile. She looked atKitty, thinking how and when she would stand with Count Siniavinin Kitty's place, and how she would remind him then of his joketoday.

　　Shtcherbatsky told the old maid of honor, Madame Nikolaeva, thathe meant to put the crown on Kitty's chignon for luck.

　　"She ought not to have worn a chignon," answered MadameNikolaeva, who had long ago made up her mind that if the elderlywidower she was angling for married her, the wedding should be ofthe simplest. "I don't like such grandeur."

　　Sergey Ivanovitch was talking to Darya Dmitrievna, jestinglyassuring her that the custom of going away after the wedding wasbecoming common because newly married people always felt a littleashamed of themselves.

　　"Your brother may feel proud of himself. She's a marvel ofsweetness. I believe you're envious."

　　"Oh, I've got over that, Darya Dmitrievna," he answered, and amelancholy and serious expression suddenly came over his face.

　　Stepan Arkadyevitch was telling his sister-in-law his joke aboutdivorce.

　　"The wreath wants setting straight," she answered, not hearinghim.

　　"What a pity she's lost her looks so," Countess Nordston said toMadame Lvova. "Still he's not worth her little finger, is he?"

　　"Oh, I like him so--not because he's my future beau-frere,"answered Madame Lvova. "And how well he's behaving! It's sodifficult, too, to look well in such a position, not to beridiculous. And he's not ridiculous, and not affected; one cansee he's moved."

　　"You expected it, I suppose?"

　　"Almost. She always cared for him."

　　"Well, we shall see which of them will step on the rug first. Iwarned Kitty."

　　"It will make no difference," said Madame Lvova; "we're allobedient wives; it's in our family."

　　"Oh, I stepped on the rug before Vassily on purpose. And you,Dolly?"

　　Dolly stood beside them; she heard them, but she did not answer.She was deeply moved. The tears stood in her eyes, and she couldnot have spoken without crying. She was rejoicing over Kitty andLevin; going back in thought to her own wedding, she glanced atthe radiant figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgot all thepresent, and remembered only her own innocent love. She recallednot herself only, but all her women-friends and acquaintances.She thought of them on the one day of their triumph, when theyhad stood like Kitty under the wedding crown, with love and hopeand dread in their hearts, renouncing the past, and steppingforward into the mysterious future. Among the brides that cameback to her memory, she thought too of her darling Anna, of whoseproposed divorce she had just been hearing. And she had stoodjust as innocent in orange flowers and bridal veil. And now?"It's terribly strange," she said to herself. It was not merelythe sisters, the women-friends and female relations of the bridewho were following every detail of the ceremony. Women who werequite strangers, mere spectators, were watching it excitedly,holding their breath, in fear of losing a single movement orexpression of the bride and bridegroom, and angrily notanswering, often not hearing, the remarks of the callous men, whokept making joking or irrelevant observations.

　　"Why has she been crying? Is she being married against herwill?"

　　"Against her will to a fine fellow like that? A prince, isn'the?"

　　"Is that her sister in the white satin? Just listen how thedeacon booms out, 'And fearing her husband.'"

　　"Are the choristers from Tchudovo?"

　　"No, from the Synod."

　　"I asked the footman. He says he's going to take her home tohis country place at once. Awfully rich, they say. That's whyshe's being married to him."

　　"No, they're a well-matched pair."

　　"I say, Marya Vassilievna, you were making out those fly-awaycrinolines were not being worn. Just look at her in the pucedress--an ambassador's wife they say she is--how her skirtbounces out from side to sides"

　　"What a pretty dear the bride is--like a lamb decked withflowers! Well, say what you will, we women feel for our sister."

　　Such were the comments in the crowd of gazing women who hadsucceeded in slipping in at the church doors.