our carriage, and perhaps Sergyeï Ivanovitch will be so good as to come immediately, and to send back his." ....
"Certainly, with pleasure."
"We will come back together. Has the luggage been sent?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Yes," replied Levin; and he called Kuzma to help him dress.
CHAPTER III
A throng of people, principally women, surrounded the church, brilliantly lighted for the wedding; those who could not get inside were pushing up around the windows and elbowing one another as they strove to look through the gratings.
Already more than twenty carriages stood in a line in the street, under the supervision of policemen. A police officer stood at the entrance in brilliant uniform, unmindful of the cold. Carriages kept driving up and departing; now ladies in full dress, holding up their trains; now men taking off their hats, or képis. In the church itself both chandeliers and all the candles before the images were already burning. The golden gleam on the red background of the ikonostas, and the gilded chasing of the ikons, and the silver of the candelabra and of the censers, and the flaggings of the floor, and the tapestries and the banners suspended in the choir and the steps of the pulpit, and the old dingy missals, and the priestly robes, were all flooded with light.
On the right-hand side of the warm church, amid the brave array of dress-coats, uniforms, and white neck-ties, and satin, silk, and velvet robes; of coiffures, flowers, and bare necks and arms, and long gloves, there was a constant flow of restrained but lively conversation, which echoed strangely beneath the high, vaulted roof.
Whenever the door opened with a plaintive creak the murmur ceased, and every one turned around, hoping
