Anna Karenina - Part 5

Princess Shtcherbatskaya considered that it was out of the

question for the wedding to take place before Lent, just five

weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready

by that time. But she could not but agree with Levin that to fix

it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old

aunt of Prince Shtcherbatsky's was seriously ill and might die,

and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer. And

therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts--a

larger and smaller trousseau--the princess consented to have the

wedding before Lent. She determined that she would get the

smaller part of the trousseau all ready now, and the larger part

should be made later, and she was much vexed with Levin because

he was incapable of giving her a serious answer to the question

whether he agreed to this arrangement or not. The arrangement

was the more suitable as, immediately after the wedding, the

young people were to go to the country, where the more important

part of the trousseau would not be wanted.

Levin still continued in the same delirious condition in which it

seemed to him that he and his happiness constituted the chief and

sole aim of all existence, and that he need not now think or care

about anything, that everything was being done and would be done

for him by others. He had not even plans and aims for the

future, he left its arrangement to others, knowing that

everything would be delightful. His brother Sergey Ivanovitch,

Stepan Arkadyevitch, and the princess guided him in doing what he

had to do. All he did was to agree entirely with everything

suggested to him. His brother raised money for him, the princess

advised him to leave Moscow after the wedding. Stepan

Arkadyevitch advised him to go abroad. He agreed to everything.

"Do what you choose, if it amuses you. I'm happy, and my

happiness can be no greater and no less for anything you do," he

thought. When he told Kitty of Stepan Arkadyevitch's advice that

they should go abroad, he was much surprised that she did not

agree to this, and had some definite requirements of her own in

regard to their future. She knew Levin had work he loved in the

country. She did not, as he saw, understand this work, she did

not even care to understand it. But that did not prevent her

from regarding it as a matter of great importance. And then she

knew their home would be in the country, and she wanted to go,

not abroad where she was not going to live, but to the place

where their home would be. This definitely expressed purpose

astonished Levin. But since he did not care either way, he

immediately asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though it were his

duty, to go down to the country and to arrange everything there

to the best of his ability with the taste of which he had so

much.