Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/589

 PART FIFTH

CHAPTER I

Princess Shcherbatskaya found it would not be possible to have the wedding before Lent, which would come in five weeks, because the trousseau would not be half done; but she could not help agreeing with Levin that after Lent it might be too late, as an old aunt of the prince's was very ill and liable to die, and then mourning would still further postpone it. So having decided to divide the trousseau into two parts,—one large, the other small,—the princess agreed to have the wedding before Lent. She decided that she would prepare the smaller part of the trousseau at once, and send the larger part afterward, and she was very indignant with Levin because he would not answer her seriously whether this would suit him or not. This arrangement was all the more convenient because the young couple intended to set out for the country immediately after the ceremony, and would not need the larger part of the things.

Levin continued in the same condition of lunacy, in which it seemed to him that he and his happiness constituted the chief and only aim of creation, and that it was wholly unnecessary for him to think or to bother himself about anything but that his friends would arrange everything for him. He did not even make any plans or arrangements for his coming life, but left others to decide for him, knowing all would be admirable. His brother, Sergyeï Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, and the princess ruled him absolutely; he was satisfied to accept whatever they proposed.

His brother borrowed the money that he needed; the princess advised him to leave Moscow after the wed-