The marshal was elected by a large majority. A hubbub arose and everybody rushed headlong for the door. Snetkov came in and the nobility surrounded him, offering congratulations.
‘Well, is it over now?’ Levin asked Sergei Ivanovich.
‘It’s just beginning,’ Sviyazhsky, smiling, answered for Sergei Ivanovich. ‘The new candidate for marshal may get more votes.’
Again Levin had quite forgotten about that. Only now did he remember that there was some subtlety here, but he found it boring to recall what it was. He was overcome with dejection and wanted to get out of the crowd that instant.
Since no one paid any attention to him and he seemed not to be needed by anyone, he quietly went to the smaller room where refreshments were served and felt greatly relieved to see the servants again. The little old servant offered him something, and Levin accepted. After eating a cutlet with beans and discussing the servant’s former masters with him, Levin, unwilling to enter the big room where he felt so uncomfortable, went for a stroll in the gallery.
The gallery was filled with smartly-dressed women who leaned over the balustrade trying not to miss a word of what was being said below. Beside the ladies sat or stood elegant lawyers, bespectacled high-school teachers and officers. The talk everywhere was about the elections, and how tormenting it was for the marshal, and how good the debate had been. In one group Levin heard his brother praised. A lady said to a lawyer:
‘I’m so glad I heard Koznyshev! It was worth going without dinner. Charming! So lucid. And one can hear everything! In your courts no one ever speaks like that. Only Meidel, and even he is far less eloquent.’
Finding free space by the balustrade, Levin leaned over and began to look and listen.
All the noblemen sat behind their partitions, by districts. In the middle of the room a man in a uniform stood and announced in a loud, high voice:
‘Now standing for provincial marshal of the nobility is Cavalry Staff-Captain Evgeny Ivanovich Opukhtin!’
A dead silence ensued, and one weak old man’s voice was heard:
‘Decline!’
‘Now standing is Court Councillor Pyotr Petrovich Bohl,’ the voice began again.
‘Decline!’ a shrill young voice rang out.
The same thing again, and again a ‘decline’. It went on that way for about an hour. Levin, leaning on the balustrade, looked and listened. At first he was surprised and wanted to understand what it meant; then, realizing that he was unable to understand it, he became bored. Then, remembering the agitation and anger he had seen on all faces, he felt sad. He decided to leave and went downstairs. Passing through the corridor behind the gallery, he met a dejected high-school student with puffy eyes pacing up and down. And on the stairs he met a couple: a lady running quickly on her high-heeled shoes and a light-footed assistant prosecutor.
‘I told you you wouldn’t be late,’ the prosecutor said just as Levin stepped aside to let the lady pass.
Levin was already on the main stairway and taking the tag for his coat from his waistcoat pocket, when the secretary caught up with him. ‘Please come, Konstantin Dmitrich, we’re voting.’
The so resolutely declining Nevedovsky was now standing as a candidate.
Levin came to the door of the big room: it was locked. The secretary knocked, the door opened, and two red-faced landowners whisked out past Levin.
‘I can’t stand any more,’ said one red-faced landowner.
After him, the face of the provincial marshal stuck itself out. Exhaustion and fear gave this face a dreadful look.
‘I told you not to let them out!’ he shouted to the doorkeeper.
‘I was letting them in, your excellency!’
‘Lord!’ And with a heavy sigh, the provincial marshal, shuffling wearily in his white trousers, his head bowed, walked across the room to the governor’s table.
Nevedovsky got the majority of votes, as had been calculated, and became the provincial marshal. Many were amused, many were pleased, happy, many were delighted, many were displeased and unhappy. The provincial marshal was in despair, which he was unable to conceal. As Nevedovsky left the big room, the crowd surrounded him and followed him out, just as it had followed the governor on the first day when he had opened the elections, and just as it had followed Snetkov when he had been elected.
XXXI
The newly elected provincial marshal and many from the victorious party of the new dined that day at Vronsky’s.
