They listened with joy in their hearts to the reading of the Epistle, and the archdeacon's voice echoing the last verse, fully appreciated by the strangers, who were impatiently waiting for it. Joyfully they drank the warm red wine and water from the flat cup, and they felt still more joyful when the priest, throwing back his chasuble, led them around the lectern, holding both their hands in his, while the bass sang, at the top of his voice, Isaïye likuï. Shcherbatsky and Chirikof, carrying the crowns, smiling and constantly treading on the bride's train, now straggled behind, now bumped into the crowned couple, as the priest paused in front of the relics. The gleam of joy on Kitty's face seemed to be communicated to all present. Levin was sure that the deacon and the priest fell under its influence as well as himself.
When the crowns had been taken from their heads, the priest read the last prayers and congratulated the young couple. Levin looked at Kitty and thought he had never seen her so beautiful; it was the beauty of that new radiance of happiness which transformed her; he wanted to say something to her, but did not know whether the ceremony was yet over or not. The priest relieved him from his uncertainty, and said gently to him, with a kindly smile:—
"Kiss your wife, and you, kiss your husband," and he took their candles.
Levin, with circumspection, kissed his wife's smiling lips, gave her his arm, and went out of the church with a new and strange feeling of being suddenly very near to her. He had not believed, he could not believe, that all this was reality. Nor until their astonished and timid eyes met did he believe it, because he felt that they were indeed one.
That same evening, after the supper, the young couple started for the country.
