Vronsky had long ago promised Sviyazhsky that he would attend. Before the elections Sviyazhsky, who often visited Vozdvizhenskoe, drove over for Vronsky.
On the eve of that day Vronsky and Anna had almost quarrelled over this proposed trip. It was the most boring, difficult autumn time in the country, and therefore Vronsky, preparing for a fight, announced his departure with a stern and cold expression on his face which he had never had before when talking to her. But, to his surprise, Anna took the news very calmly and only asked when he would come back. He looked at her attentively, not understanding this calm. She smiled at his look. He knew this ability she had of withdrawing into herself, and he knew that it happened only when she had decided on something in herself without telling him her plans. He feared it, but he wished so much to avoid a scene that he pretended to believe, and in part sincerely believed, in what he would have liked to believe in - her reasonableness.
‘You won’t be bored, I hope?’
‘I hope,’ said Anna. ‘Yesterday I received a box of books from Gautier.7 No, I won’t be bored.’
‘She wants to take this tone, and so much the better,’ he thought, ‘otherwise it would be the same thing all over again.’
And so, without challenging her to a frank explanation, he went off to the elections. It was the first time since the start of their liaison that he had parted from her without talking it all through. On the one hand, this troubled him; on the other, he found it better this way. ‘At first it will be like now, something vague, hidden, but then she’ll get used to it. In any case, I can give her everything, but not my male independence,’ he thought.
XXVI
In September Levin moved to Moscow for Kitty’s confinement. He had already spent a whole month in Moscow doing nothing, when Sergei Ivanovich, who owned an estate in Kashin province and took great interest in the question of the forthcoming elections, got ready to attend them. He invited his brother, who had a ballot for the Seleznev district, to go with him. Besides that, Levin had business in Kashin, of the utmost importance for his sister, who lived abroad, to do with settling the matter with the trusteeship and obtaining a quittance.
Levin was still undecided, but Kitty, who saw that he was bored in Moscow, advised him to go and, without asking, ordered him a nobleman’s uniform that cost eighty roubles. And the eighty roubles spent on the uniform were the main thing that made Levin go. He went to Kashin.
Levin had been in Kashin for six days already, attending the meetings every day and busying himself with his sister’s affairs, which did not go well. The marshals were all occupied with the elections and it was impossible to settle the very simple matter which depended on the trusteeship. The other business - obtaining the money - met with obstacles in the same way. After long efforts to have the freeze lifted, the money was ready to be paid; but the notary, a most obliging man, could not issue the cheque because the chairman’s signature was needed, and the chairman, without handing over his duties, was attending the session. All this bustling, going about from place to place, talking with very kind, good people, who well understood the unpleasantness of the petitioner’s position but were unable to help him - all this tension, while producing no results, gave Levin a painful feeling similar to that vexing impotence one experiences in dreams when one tries to use physical force. He felt it often, speaking with his good-natured attorney. This attorney did everything possible, it seemed, and strained all his mental powers to get Levin out of the quandary. ‘Try this,’ he said more than once, ‘go to this place and that place,’ and the attorney would make a whole plan for getting round the fatal principle that was hindering everything. Then he would add at once, ‘They’ll hold it up anyway, but try it.’ And Levin tried, visited, went. Everybody was kind and courteous, but it always turned out that what had been got round re-emerged in the end and again barred the way. In particular it was offensive that Levin simply could not understand with whom he was struggling, who profited from the fact that his case never came to an end. This no one seemed to know; the attorney did not know either. If Levin could have understood it, as he understood why he could not get to the ticket window at the station otherwise than by waiting in line, he would not have felt offended and vexed; but no one could explain to him why the obstacles he encountered in his case existed.
However, Levin had changed greatly since his marriage; he was patient, and if he did not understand why it was all arranged that way, he said to himself that he could not judge without knowing everything, that it probably had to be that way, and he tried not to be indignant.
