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Anna Karenina - Part 5

Page 21

"Oh, I like him so--not because he's my future _beau-frère_,"

answered Madame Lvova. "And how well he's behaving! It's so

difficult, too, to look well in such a position, not to be

ridiculous. And he's not ridiculous, and not affected; one can

see 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. I

warned Kitty."

"It will make no difference," said Madame Lvova; "we're all

obedient 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 could

not have spoken without crying. She was rejoicing over Kitty and

Levin; going back in thought to her own wedding, she glanced at

the radiant figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgot all the

present, and remembered only her own innocent love. She recalled

not herself only, but all her women-friends and acquaintances.

She thought of them on the one day of their triumph, when they

had stood like Kitty under the wedding crown, with love and hope

and dread in their hearts, renouncing the past, and stepping

forward into the mysterious future. Among the brides that came

back to her memory, she thought too of her darling Anna, of whose

proposed divorce she had just been hearing. And she had stood

just as innocent in orange flowers and bridal veil. And now?

"It's terribly strange," she said to herself. It was not merely

the sisters, the women-friends and female relations of the bride

who were following every detail of the ceremony. Women who were

quite strangers, mere spectators, were watching it excitedly,

holding their breath, in fear of losing a single movement or

expression of the bride and bridegroom, and angrily not

answering, often not hearing, the remarks of the callous men, who

kept making joking or irrelevant observations.

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

will?"

"Against her will to a fine fellow like that? A prince, isn't

he?"

"Is that her sister in the white satin? Just listen how the

deacon 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 to

his country place at once. Awfully rich, they say. That's why

she's being married to him."

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