The most solemn moment arrived. The elections were about to begin. The leaders of both parties were tallying white and black ballots on their fingers.
The debate over Flerov had given the new party not only Flerov’s one vote but also a gain in time, so that three noblemen who had been kept from participating in the elections by the machinations of the old party could be brought in. Two of these noblemen, who had a weakness for wine, had been made drunk by Snetkov’s minions, and the third had had his uniform stolen.
Learning of it, the new party managed, during the debate over Flerov, to send two of their people in a cab to furnish the one nobleman with a uniform and bring one of the two drunk men to the meeting.
‘I poured water over one and brought him,’ said the landowner who had gone on the errand, coming up to Sviyazhsky. ‘Never mind, he’ll do.’
‘He’s not too drunk? He won’t fall down?’ Sviyazhsky said, shaking his head.
‘No, he’s fine. As long as they don’t give him any more to drink here ... I told the barman on no account to serve him.’
XXIX
The narrow room for smoking and refreshments was filled with noblemen. The excitement kept mounting, and anxiety could be noticed on all faces. Especially excited were the leaders, who knew all the details and the count of all the ballots. They were the directors of the impending battle. The rest, like rank-and-file soldiers, though readying themselves before the fight, meanwhile sought distraction. Some ate and drank, standing up or sitting at the table; others paced up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes and talking with friends they had not seen for a long time.
Levin did not want to eat and did not smoke; he also did not want to mix with his own people, that is, with Sergei Ivanovich, Stepan Arkadyich, Sviyazhsky and the others, because Vronsky was standing with them in his equerry’s uniform, engaged in an animated conversation. Levin had noticed him at the elections the day before and had carefully avoided him, not wishing to meet him. He went over to the window and sat down, looking at the groups and listening to what was being said around him. He felt sad, especially because he could see that everyone was animated, preoccupied and busy, and he alone, along with one extremely old, toothless man in a navy uniform, who sat next to him chewing his gums, had no interest and nothing to do.
‘He’s such a rogue! I told him, but no. Really! In three years he couldn’t collect it,’ a short, stooping landowner, with pomaded hair that hung over the embroidered collar of his uniform, was saying energetically, stomping solidly with the heels of his new boots, evidently donned for the elections. And, casting a displeased glance at Levin, he abruptly turned away.
‘Yes, it’s dirty work, say what you will,’ the little landowner said in a high voice.
After them a whole crowd of landowners, surrounding a fat general, hurriedly came towards Levin. The landowners were obviously looking for a place to talk without being overheard.
‘How dare he say I ordered his trousers stolen! He drank them up, I suppose. I spit on him and his princely rank. He daren’t say that, it’s swinishness!’
‘I beg your pardon! They’re basing it on the article,’ voices came from another group, ‘the wife must be on record as a noblewoman.’
‘The devil I care about the article! I’m speaking from the soul. That’s what makes us nobility. There has to be trust.’
‘Come, your excellency, there’s
Another crowd followed after a nobleman who was loudly shouting something: he was one of the three who had been made drunk.
‘I always advised Marya Semyonovna to lease it, because she can’t make any profit,’ a grey-moustached landowner in the uniform of a colonel of the old general headquarters said in a pleasant voice. This was the landowner Levin had met at Sviyazhsky’s. He recognized him at once. The landowner also looked closer at Levin, and they greeted each other.
‘Delighted! Of course! I remember very well. Last year at Marshal Nikolai Ivanovich’s.’
‘Well, how goes the farming?’ asked Levin.
‘The same - still at a loss,’ the landowner, stopping near Levin, answered with a resigned smile, but with an expression of calm conviction that it had to be so. ‘And how have you wound up in our province?’ he asked. ‘Come to take part in our
‘I must confess that I have a very poor understanding of the significance of these elections among the nobility,’ said Levin.
The landowner looked at him.
