Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 187
855 words | Chapter 187
The sixth day was fixed for the election of the marshal of the
province.
The rooms, large and small, were full of noblemen in all sorts of
uniforms. Many had come only for that day. Men who had not seen each
other for years, some from the Crimea, some from Petersburg, some from
abroad, met in the rooms of the Hall of Nobility. There was much
discussion around the governor’s table under the portrait of the Tsar.
The nobles, both in the larger and the smaller rooms, grouped
themselves in camps, and from their hostile and suspicious glances,
from the silence that fell upon them when outsiders approached a group,
and from the way that some, whispering together, retreated to the
farther corridor, it was evident that each side had secrets from the
other. In appearance the noblemen were sharply divided into two
classes: the old and the new. The old were for the most part either in
old uniforms of the nobility, buttoned up closely, with spurs and hats,
or in their own special naval, cavalry, infantry, or official uniforms.
The uniforms of the older men were embroidered in the old-fashioned way
with epaulets on their shoulders; they were unmistakably tight and
short in the waist, as though their wearers had grown out of them. The
younger men wore the uniform of the nobility with long waists and broad
shoulders, unbuttoned over white waistcoats, or uniforms with black
collars and with the embroidered badges of justices of the peace. To
the younger men belonged the court uniforms that here and there
brightened up the crowd.
But the division into young and old did not correspond with the
division of parties. Some of the young men, as Levin observed, belonged
to the old party; and some of the very oldest noblemen, on the
contrary, were whispering with Sviazhsky, and were evidently ardent
partisans of the new party.
Levin stood in the smaller room, where they were smoking and taking
light refreshments, close to his own friends, and listening to what
they were saying, he conscientiously exerted all his intelligence
trying to understand what was said. Sergey Ivanovitch was the center
round which the others grouped themselves. He was listening at that
moment to Sviazhsky and Hliustov, the marshal of another district, who
belonged to their party. Hliustov would not agree to go with his
district to ask Snetkov to stand, while Sviazhsky was persuading him to
do so, and Sergey Ivanovitch was approving of the plan. Levin could not
make out why the opposition was to ask the marshal to stand whom they
wanted to supersede.
Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just been drinking and taking some lunch,
came up to them in his uniform of a gentleman of the bedchamber, wiping
his lips with a perfumed handkerchief of bordered batiste.
“We are placing our forces,” he said, pulling out his whiskers, “Sergey
Ivanovitch!”
And listening to the conversation, he supported Sviazhsky’s contention.
“One district’s enough, and Sviazhsky’s obviously of the opposition,”
he said, words evidently intelligible to all except Levin.
“Why, Kostya, you here too! I suppose you’re converted, eh?” he added,
turning to Levin and drawing his arm through his. Levin would have been
glad indeed to be converted, but could not make out what the point was,
and retreating a few steps from the speakers, he explained to Stepan
Arkadyevitch his inability to understand why the marshal of the
province should be asked to stand.
_“O sancta simplicitas!”_ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and briefly and
clearly he explained it to Levin. If, as at previous elections, all the
districts asked the marshal of the province to stand, then he would be
elected without a ballot. That must not be. Now eight districts had
agreed to call upon him: if two refused to do so, Snetkov might decline
to stand at all; and then the old party might choose another of their
party, which would throw them completely out in their reckoning. But if
only one district, Sviazhsky’s, did not call upon him to stand, Snetkov
would let himself be balloted for. They were even, some of them, going
to vote for him, and purposely to let him get a good many votes, so
that the enemy might be thrown off the scent, and when a candidate of
the other side was put up, they too might give him some votes. Levin
understood to some extent, but not fully, and would have put a few more
questions, when suddenly everyone began talking and making a noise and
they moved towards the big room.
“What is it? eh? whom?” “No guarantee? whose? what?” “They won’t pass
him?” “No guarantee?” “They won’t let Flerov in?” “Eh, because of the
charge against him?” “Why, at this rate, they won’t admit anyone. It’s
a swindle!” “The law!” Levin heard exclamations on all sides, and he
moved into the big room together with the others, all hurrying
somewhere and afraid of missing something. Squeezed by the crowding
noblemen, he drew near the high table where the marshal of the
province, Sviazhsky, and the other leaders were hotly disputing about
something.
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