st he had taken the bride's hand in
the correct way, the priest walked a few paces in front of them
and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of friends and relations
moved after them, with a buzz of talk and a rustle of skirts.
Someone stooped down and pulled out the bride's train. The
church became so still that the drops of wax could be heard
falling from the candles.

The little old priest in his ecclesiastical cap, with his long
silvery-gray locks of hair parted behind his ears, was fumbling
with something at the lectern, putting out his little old hands
from under the heavy silver vestment with the gold cross on the
back of it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch approached him cautiously, whispered
something, and making a sign to Levin, walked back again.

The priest lighted two candles, wreathed with flowers, and
holding them sideways so that the wax dropped slowly from them he
turned, facing the bridal pair. The priest was the same old man
that had confessed Levin. He looked with weary and melancholy
eyes at the bride and bridegroom, sighed, and putting his right
hand out from his vestment, blessed the bridegroom with it, and
also with a shade of solicitous tenderness laid the crossed
fingers on the bowed head of Kitty. Then he gave them the
candles, and taking the censer, moved slowly away from them.

"Can it be true?" thought Levin, and he looked round at his
bride. Looking down at her he saw her face in profile, and from
the scarcely perceptible quiver of her lips and eyelashes he knew
she was aware of his eyes upon her. She did not look round, but
the high scalloped collar, that reached her little pink ear,
trembled faintly. He saw that a sigh was held back in her
throat, and the little hand in the long glove shook as it held
the candle.

All the fuss of the shirt, of being late, all the talk of friends
and relations, their annoyance, his ludicrous position--all
suddenly passed away and he was filled with joy and dread.

The handsome, stately head-deacon wearing a silver robe and his
curly locks standing out at each side of his head, stepped
smartly forward, and lifting his stole on two fingers, stood
opposite the priest.

"Blessed be the name of the Lord," the solemn syllables rang out
slowly one after another, setting the air quivering with waves of
sound.

"Blessed is the name of our God, from the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be," the little old priest answered in a submissive,
piping voice, stil