"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."