meeting that all was in order. The marshal of the province got up, thanked
the nobility for their confidence, and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud
welcome, and shook hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of
Sergey Ivanovitch’s party said that he had heard that the committee had not
verified the accounts, considering such a verification an insult to the
marshal of the province. One of the members of the committee incautiously
admitted this. Then a small gentleman, very young-looking but very
malignant, began to say that it would probably be agreeable to the marshal
of the province to give an account of his expenditures of the public moneys,
and that the misplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was
depriving him of this moral satisfaction. Then the members of the
committee tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergey Ivanovitch began
to prove that they must logically admit either that they had verified the
accounts or that they had not, and he developed this dilemma in detail.
Sergey Ivanovitch was answered by the spokesman of the opposite party.
Then Sviazhsky spoke, and then the malignant gentleman again. The
discussion lasted a long time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised that
they should dispute upon this subject so long, especially as, when he asked
Sergey Ivanovitch whether he supposed that money had been
misappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch answered:
“Oh, no! He’s an honest man. But those old-fashioned methods of
paternal family arrangements in the management of provincial affairs must
be broken down.”
On the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals. It was rather
a stormy day in several districts. In the Seleznevsky district Sviazhsky was
elected unanimously without a ballot, and he gave a dinner that evening.
Chapter 27
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.
