Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [263]
The prayer was, as always, for the peace from above, for salvation, for the Synod,12 for the emperor, and also for the servants of God Konstantin and Ekaterina, betrothed that day.
‘That He will send down upon them perfect and peaceful love, and succour, let us pray to the Lord’ - the whole church seemed to breathe through the protodeacon’s voice.
Levin listened to the words and they struck him. ‘How did they guess that it’s succour, precisely succour?’ he thought, remembering all his recent fears and doubts. ‘What do I know? What can I do in this terrible matter,’ he thought, ‘without succour? It’s precisely succour that I need now.’
When the deacon finished the litany, the priest turned with his book to the couple to be betrothed:
‘O eternal God, who has brought into unity those who were sundered,’ he read in a mild, melodious voice, ‘and hast ordained for them an indissoluble bond of love; who didst bless Isaac and Rebecca and didst make them heirs of thy promise: bless also these thy servants, Konstantin and Ekaterina, guiding them unto every good work. For thou art a merciful God, who lovest mankind, and unto thee do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages.’
‘A-a-men!’ the invisible choir again poured into the air.
‘ “Who hast brought into unity those who were sundered, and hast ordained for them an indissoluble bond of love” - how profound these words are, and how well they correspond to what one feels at this moment!’ thought Levin. ‘Does she feel the same as I do?’
And, turning, he met her eyes.
And by the look in those eyes he concluded that she understood it as he did. But that was not so; she had almost no understanding of the words of the service and did not even listen during the betrothal. She was unable to hear and understand them: so strong was the one feeling that filled her soul and was growing stronger and stronger. That feeling was the joy of the complete fulfilment of that which had already been accomplished in her soul a month and a half ago and throughout all those six weeks had caused her joy and torment. On that day when, in her brown dress, in the reception room of their house on the Arbat, she had silently gone up to him and given herself to him - in her soul on that day and hour there was accomplished a total break with her entire former life, and there began a completely different, new life, totally unknown to her, while in reality the old one had gone on. Those six weeks had been a most blissful and tormenting time for her. All her life, all her desires and hopes were concentrated on this one man, still incomprehensible to her, with whom she was united by some feeling still more incomprehensible than the man himself, now drawing her to him, now repulsing her, and all the while she went on living in the circumstances of her former life. Living her old life, she was horrified at herself, at her total, insuperable indifference to her entire past: to things, to habits, to people who had loved and still loved her, to her mother, who was upset by this indifference, to her dear, tender father, whom she had once loved more than anyone in the world. First she would be horrified at this indifference, then she would rejoice over what had brought her to it. She could neither think nor desire anything outside her life with this man; but this new life had not begun yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was nothing but expectation - the fear and joy of the new and unknown. And now the expectation, and the unknownness, and remorse at the renouncing of her former life - all this was about to end, and the new was to begin. This new could not help being frightening; but, frightening or not, it had already been accomplished six weeks earlier in her soul; now was merely the sanctifying of what had