Page 974 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

blowing their noses. The priest was continually sending
first the beadle and then the deacon to find out whether
the bridegroom had not come, more and more often he
went himself, in a lilac vestment and an embroidered sash,

to the side door, expecting to see the bridegroom. At last
one of the ladies, glancing at her watch, said, ‘It really is
strange, though!’ and all the guests became uneasy and
began loudly expressing their wonder and dissatisfaction.
One of the bridegroom’s best men went to find out what
had happened. Kitty meanwhile had long ago been quite
ready, and in her white dress and long veil and wreath of
orange blossoms she was standing in the drawing-room of
the Shtcherbatskys’ house with her sister, Madame Lvova,
who was her bridal-mother. She was looking out of the
window, and had been for over half an hour anxiously
expecting to hear from her best man that her bridegroom
was at the church.
Levin meanwhile, in his trousers, but without his coat
and waistcoat, was walking to and fro in his room at the
hotel, continually putting his head out of the door and
looking up and down the corridor. But in the corridor
there was no sign of the person he was looking for and he
came back in despair, and frantically waving his hands

973 of 1759