第278章

Levin was just about to enter into conversation with the old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a little old man whose speciality it was to know all the noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew him away.

`Please come, Konstantin Dmitrievich,' he said, `your brother's looking for you. They are voting on the legal point.'

Levin walked into the room, received a white ball, and followed his brother, Sergei Ivanovich, to the table where Sviiazhsky was standing with a significant and ironical face, holding his beard in his fist and sniffing at it. Sergei Ivanovich put his hand into the box, put the ball somewhere, and, making room for Levin, stopped. Levin advanced, but utterly forgetting what he was to do, and much embarrassed, he turned to Sergei Ivanovich with the question, `Where am I to put it?' He asked this softly, at a moment when there was talking going on near, so that he had hoped his question would not be overheard. But the persons speaking paused, and his improper question was overheard. Sergei Ivanovich frowned.

`That is a matter for each man's own decision,' he said severely.

Several people smiled. Levin crimsoned, hurriedly thrust his hand under the cloth, and put the ball to the right as it was in his right hand.

Having put it in, he recollected that he ought to have thrust his left hand in too, and so he thrust it in though too late, and, still more overcome with confusion, he beat a hasty retreat into the background.

`A hund'ed and twenty-six fo' admission! Ninety-eight against!'

sang out the voice of the secretary, who could not pronounce the letter r. Then there was a laugh; a button and two hazelnuts were found in the box. The nobleman was allowed the right to vote, and the new party had conquered.

But the old party did not consider themselves conquered. Levin heard that they were asking Snetkov to be candidate, and he saw that a crowd of noblemen was surrounding the marshal, who was saying something.

Levin went nearer. In reply Snetkov spoke of the trust the noblemen of the province had placed in him, the affection they had shown him, which he did not deserve, as his only merit had been his attachment to the nobility, to whom he had devoted twelve years of service. Several times he repeated the words: `I have served to the best of my powers with truth and good faith; I value your goodness and thank you,' and suddenly he stopped short from the tears that choked him, and went out of the room. Whether these tears came from a sense of the injustice being done him, from his love for the nobility, or from the strain of the position he was placed in, feeling himself surrounded by enemies, his emotion infected the assembly, the majority were touched, and Levin felt a tenderness for Snetkov.

In the doorway the marshal of the province jostled against Levin.

`Beg pardon - excuse me, please,' he said as to a stranger, but, recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It seemed to Levin that he would have liked to say something, but could not speak for emotion. His face and his whole figure in his uniform with the crosses, and white trousers striped with galloons, as he moved hurriedly along, reminded Levin of some hunted beast who sees that he is in evil plight. This expression on the marshal's face was particularly touching to Levin, because, only the day before, he had been at his house about his guardianship business and had seen him in all his grandeur, a kindhearted, fatherly man. The big house with the old family furniture; the rather slovenly, far from stylish, but respectful footmen - unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their master; the stout, good-natured wife in a cap with lace and a Turkish shawl, petting her pretty grandchild, her daughter's daughter; the young son, a sixth-form high school boy, coming home from school, and greeting his father by kissing his big hand; the genuine, cordial words and gestures of the old man - all this had the day before roused an instinctive feeling of respect and sympathy in Levin. This old man was a touching and pathetic figure to Levin now, and he longed to say something pleasant to him.

`So you're our marshal again,' he said.

`It's not likely,' said the marshal, looking round with a scared expression. `I'm worn-out, I'm old. If there are men younger and more deserving than I, let them serve.'

And the marshal disappeared through a side door.

The most solemn moment was at hand. They were to proceed immediately to the election. The leaders of both parties were reckoning white and black on their fingers.

The discussion upon Fliorov had given the new party not only Fliorov's vote, but had also gained time for them, so that they could send to fetch three noblemen who had been rendered unable to take part in the elections by the wiles of the other party. Two noble gentlemen, who had a weakness for strong drink, had been made drunk by the partisans of Snetkov, and a third had been relieved of his uniform.

On learning this, the new party had made haste, during the dispute about Fliorov, to send some of their men in a cab to clothe the stripped gentleman, and to bring along one of the intoxicated to the meeting.

`I've brought one after bringing him to by throwing water - over him,' said the landowner who had gone on this errand, to Sviiazhsky. `Never mind - he'll do.'

`Not too drunk - he won't fall down?' said Sviiazhsky, shaking his head.

`No, he's first-rate. If only they don't give him any more here....

I've told the barman not to give him anything, on any account.'

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