Levin looked round at her, and was struck by the joyful radiance on her face, and unconsciously her feeling infected him.
He too, like her felt glad and happy.
They enjoyed hearing the epistle read, and the roll of the head deacon's voice at the last verse, awaited with such impatience by the outside public.
They enjoyed drinking out of the shallow cup of warm red wine and water, and they were still more pleased when the priest, flinging back his stole and taking both their hands in his, led them round the lectern to the accompaniment of bass voices chanting
"Glory to God."
Shtcherbatsky and Tchirikov, supporting the crowns and stumbling over the bride's train, smiling too and seeming delighted at something, were at one moment left behind, at the next treading on the bridal pair as the priest came to a halt.
The spark of joy kindled in Kitty seemed to have infected everyone in the church.
It seemed to Levin that the priest and the deacon too wanted to smile just as he did.
Taking the crowns off their heads the priest read the last prayer and congratulated the young people.
Levin looked at Kitty, and he had never before seen her look as she did.
She was charming with the new radiance of happiness in her face.
Levin longed to say something to her, but he did not know whether it was all over.
The priest got him out of his difficulty.
He smiled his kindly smile and said gently,
"Kiss your wife, and you kiss your husband," and took the candles out of their hands.
Levin kissed her smiling lips with timid care, gave her his arm, and with a new strange sense of closeness, walked out of the church.
He did not believe, he could not believe, that it was true.
It was only when their wondering and timid eyes met that he believed in it, because he felt that they were one.
After supper, the same night, the young people left for the country.
Chapter 7.
Vronsky and Anna had been traveling for three months together in Europe.
They had visited Venice, Rome, and Naples, and had just arrived at a small Italian town where they meant to stay some time.
A handsome head waiter, with thick pomaded hair parted from the neck upwards, an evening coat, a broad white cambric shirt front, and a bunch of trinkets hanging above his rounded stomach, stood with his hands in the full curve of his pockets, looking contemptuously from under his eyelids while he gave some frigid reply to a gentleman who had stopped him.
Catching the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the entry towards the staircase, the head waiter turned round, and seeing the Russian count, who had taken their best rooms, he took his hands out of his pockets deferentially, and with a bow informed him that a courier had been, and that the business about the palazzo had been arranged.
The steward was prepared to sign the agreement.
"Ah!
I'm glad to hear it," said Vronsky. "Is madame at home or not?"
"Madame has been out for a walk but has returned now," answered the waiter.
Vronsky took off his soft, wide-brimmed hat and passed his handkerchief over his heated brow and hair, which had grown half over his ears, and was brushed back covering the bald patch on his head.
And glancing casually at the gentleman, who still stood there gazing intently at him, he would have gone on.
"This gentleman is a Russian, and was inquiring after you," said the head waiter.
With mingled feelings of annoyance at never being able to get away from acquaintances anywhere, and longing to find some sort of diversion from the monotony of his life, Vronsky looked once more at the gentleman, who had retreated and stood still again, and at the same moment a light came into the eyes of both.
"Golenishtchev!"
"Vronsky!"
It really was Golenishtchev, a comrade of Vronsky's in the Corps of Pages.
In the corps Golenishtchev had belonged to the liberal party; he left the corps without entering the army, and had never taken office under the government.
Vronsky and he had gone completely different ways on leaving the corps, and had only met once since.
At that meeting Vronsky perceived that Golenishtchev had taken up a sort of lofty, intellectually liberal line, and was consequently disposed to look down upon Vronsky's interests and calling in life.
Hence Vronsky had met him with the chilling and haughty manner he so well knew how to assume, the meaning of which was:
"You may like or dislike my way of life, that's a matter of the most perfect indifference to me; you will have to treat me with respect if you want to know me."
Golenishtchev had been contemptuously indifferent to the tone taken by Vronsky.
This second meeting might have been expected, one would have supposed, to estrange them still more.
But now they beamed and exclaimed with delight on recognizing one another.
Vronsky would never have expected to be so pleased to see Golenishtchev, but probably he was not himself aware how bored he was.
He forgot the disagreeable impression of their last meeting, and with a face of frank delight held out his hand to his old comrade.
The same expression of delight replaced the look of uneasiness on Golenishtchev's face.
"How glad I am to meet you!" said Vronsky, showing his strong white teeth in a friendly smile.
"I heard the name Vronsky, but I didn't know which one.
I'm very, very glad!"
"Let's go in.