Anna Karenina полностью

Vronsky had come to the elections because he was bored in the country and had to assert his right to freedom before Anna, and in order to repay Sviyazhsky with support at the elections for all the trouble he had taken for him at the zemstvo elections, and most of all in order to strictly fulfil all the responsibilities of the position of nobleman and landowner that he had chosen for himself. But he had never expected that this business of the elections could get him so involved, could so touch him to the quick, or that he could do it so well. He was a completely new man in the circle of the noblemen, but he was obviously a success, and he was not mistaken in thinking that he had already gained influence among them. Contributing to that influence were: his wealth and high birth; his splendid lodgings in town, which his old acquaintance, Shirkov, a financial dealer who had established a flourishing bank in Kashin, allowed him to use; an excellent chef, whom Vronsky had brought along from the country; his friendship with the governor, who had been Vronsky’s comrade, and a patronized comrade at that; and most of all his simple, equable treatment of everyone, which very soon made most of the noblemen change their opinion about his supposed pride. He himself felt that, apart from the crack-brained gentleman married to Kitty Shcherbatsky, who, à propos de bottes,^cu had told him, with ridiculous anger, heaps of totally inappropriate inanities, every nobleman whose acquaintance he had made had ended by becoming his adherent. He saw clearly, and others admitted it as well, that he had contributed greatly to Nevedovsky’s success. And now, at his own table, celebrating Nevedovsky’s victory, he experienced a pleasant feeling of triumph for the man of his choice. The elections themselves enticed him so much that, should he be married by the end of the three-year term, he was thinking of standing himself - in the same way as, after winning a prize through a jockey, he would always wish he had raced himself.

But now the jockey’s victory was being celebrated. Vronsky sat at the head of the table; to his right sat the young governor, a general at imperial headquarters. For everyone else he was the master of the province, who had solemnly opened the elections, delivered a speech, and inspired both respect and servility in many, as Vronsky could see; but for Vronsky he was Katie Maslov - as he had been nicknamed in the Corps of Pages - who felt abashed before him and whom Vronsky tried to mettre à son aise.^cv To the left of him sat Nevedovsky, with his youthful, unshakable and venomous face. With him Vronsky was simple and respectful.

Sviyazhsky bore his failure cheerfully. It was not even a failure for him, as he said himself, addressing Nevedovsky with a glass: it was impossible to find a better representative of that new direction which the nobility must follow. And therefore all that was honest, as he said, stood on the side of the present success and celebrated it.

Stepan Arkadyich was also glad that he was having a merry time and that everyone was pleased. Over an excellent dinner they recalled episodes from the elections. Sviyazhsky comically imitated the marshal’s tearful speech and observed, turning to Nevedovsky, that his excellency would have to find a different method, more complicated than tears, for auditing the books. Another jocular nobleman told them that stockinged lackeys had been summoned for the provincial marshal’s ball, and that now they would have to be sent back, unless the new provincial marshal gave a ball with stockinged lackeys.

During dinner Nevedovsky was constantly addressed with the words ‘our provincial marshal’ ‘and your excellency’.

This was done with the same pleasure as when a young woman is addressed as ‘madame’ and with her husband’s last name. Nevedovsky pretended that he was not only indifferent to but even scorned the title, yet it was obvious that he was happy and only kept a tight rein on himself so as not to express a delight unsuited to the new liberal milieu in which they all found themselves.

Over dinner several telegrams were sent to people interested in the course of the elections. And Stepan Arkadyich, who was very merry, sent Darya Alexandrovna a telegram with the following content: ‘Nevedovsky won by twelve votes. Congratulations. Spread news.’ He dictated it aloud, observing: ‘They must share the glad tidings.’ When she received the telegram, Darya Alexandrovna merely sighed over the waste of a rouble, realizing that it must have been the end of the dinner. She knew that Stiva had a weakness for faire jouer le télégraphe^cw at the end of a good dinner.