Page 987 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Dolly, Tchirikov, and Stepan Arkadyevitch stepped
forward to set them right. There was an interval of
hesitation, whispering, and smiles; but the expression of
solemn emotion on the faces of the betrothed pair did not

change: on the contrary, in their perplexity over their
hands they looked more grave and deeply moved than
before, and the smile with which Stepan Arkadyevitch
whispered to them that now they would each put on their
own ring died away on his lips. He had a feeling that any
smile would jar on them.
‘Thou who didst from the beginning create male and
female,’ the priest read after the exchange of rings, ‘from
Thee woman was given to man to be a helpmeet to him,
and for the procreation of children. O Lord, our God,
who hast poured down the blessings of Thy Truth
according to Thy Holy Covenant upon Thy chosen
servants, our fathers, from generation to generation, bless
Thy servants Konstantin and Ekaterina, and make their
troth fast in faith, and union of hearts, and truth, and
love...’
Levin felt more and more that all his ideas of marriage,
all his dreams of how he would order his life, were mere
childishness, and that it was something he had not
understood hitherto, and now understood less than ever,

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