Anna Karenina - Part 6 - Page 100/121

The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to the

nobles, urging them to elect the public functionaries, not from

regard for persons, but for the service and welfare of their

fatherland, and hoping that the honorable nobility of the

Kashinsky province would, as at all former elections, hold their

duty as sacred, and vindicate the exalted confidence of the

monarch.

When he had finished with his speech, the governor walked out of

the hall, and the noblemen noisily and eagerly--some even

enthusiastically--followed him and thronged round him while he

put on his fur coat and conversed amicably with the marshal of

the province. Levin, anxious to see into everything and not to

miss anything, stood there too in the crowd, and heard the

governor say: "Please tell Marya Ivanovna my wife is very sorry

she couldn't come to the Home." And thereupon the nobles in high

good-humor sorted out their fur coats and all drove off to the

cathedral.

In the cathedral Levin, lifting his hand like the rest and

repeating the words of the archdeacon, swore with most terrible

oaths to do all the governor had hoped they would do. Church

services always affected Levin, and as he uttered the words "I

kiss the cross," and glanced round at the crowd of young and old

men repeating the same, he felt touched.

On the second and third days there was business relating to the

finances of the nobility and the female high school, of no

importance whatever, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained, and Levin,

busy seeing after his own affairs, did not attend the meetings.

On the fourth day the auditing of the marshal's accounts took

place at the high table of the marshal of the province. And then

there occurred the first skirmish between the new party and the

old. The committee who had been deputed to verify the accounts

reported to the meeting that all was in order. The marshal of

the province got up, thanked the nobility for their confidence,

and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud welcome, and shook

hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of Sergey

Ivanovitch's party said that he had heard that the committee had

not verified the accounts, considering such a verification an

insult to the marshal of the province. One of the members of the

committee incautiously admitted this. Then a small gentleman,

very young-looking but very malignant, began to say that it would

probably be agreeable to the marshal of the province to give an

account of his expenditures of the public moneys, and that the

misplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was depriving

him of this moral satisfaction. Then the members of the

committee tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergey

Ivanovitch began to prove that they must logically admit either

that they had verified the accounts or that they had not, and he

developed this dilemma in detail. Sergey Ivanovitch was answered

by the spokesman of the opposite party. Then Sviazhsky spoke,

and then the malignant gentleman again. The discussion lasted a

long time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised that they

should dispute upon this subject so long, especially as, when he

asked Sergey Ivanovitch whether he supposed that money had been

misappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch answered: "Oh, no! He's an honest man. But those old-fashioned methods of

paternal family arrangements in the management of provincial

affairs must be broken down."