Part Six: Chapter 26

by Leo Tolstoy

　　In September Levin moved to Moscow for Kitty's confinement. Hehad spent a whole month in Moscow with nothing to do, when SergeyIvanovitch, who had property in the Kashinsky province, and tookgreat interest in the question of the approaching elections, madeready to set off to the elections. He invited his brother, whohad a vote in the Seleznevsky district, to come with him. Levinhad, moreover, to transact in Kashin some extremely importantbusiness relating to the wardship of land and to the receiving ofcertain redemption money for his sister, who was abroad.

　　Levin still hesitated, but Kitty, who saw that he was bored inMoscow, and urged him to go, on her own authority ordered him theproper nobleman's uniform, costing seven pounds. And that sevenpounds paid for the uniform was the chief cause that finallydecided Levin to go. He went to Kashin....

　　Levin had been six days in Kashin, visiting the assembly eachday, and busily engaged about his sister's business, which stilldragged on. The district marshals of nobility were all occupiedwith the elections, and it was impossible to get the simplestthing done that depended upon the court of wardship. The othermatter, the payment of the sums due, was met too by difficulties.After long negotiations over the legal details, the money was atlast ready to be paid; but the notary, a most obliging person,could not hand over the order, because it must have the signatureof the president, and the president, though he had not given overhis duties to a deputy, was at the elections. All these worryingnegotiations, this endless going from place to place, and talkingwith pleasant and excellent people, who quite saw theunpleasantness of the petitioner's position, but were powerlessto assist him--all these efforts that yielded no result, led to afeeling of misery in Levin akin to the mortifying helplessnessone experiences in dreams when one tries to use physical force.He felt this frequently as he talked to his most good-naturedsolicitor. This solicitor did, it seemed, everything possible,and strained every nerve to get him out of his difficulties. "Itell you what you might try," he said more than once; "go toso-and-so and so-and-so," and the solicitor drew up a regularplan for getting round the fatal point that hindered everything.But he would add immediately, "It'll mean some delay, anyway, butyou might try it." And Levin did try, and did go. Everyone waskind and civil, but the point evaded seemed to crop up again inthe end, and again to bar the way. What was particularly trying,was that Levin could not make out with whom he was struggling, towhose interest it was that his business should not be done. Thatno one seemed to know; the solicitor certainly did not know. IfLevin could have understood why, just as he saw why one can onlyapproach the booking office of a railway station in single file,it would not have been so vexatious and tiresome to him. Butwith the hindrances that confronted him in his business, no onecould explain why they existed.

　　But Levin had changed a good deal since his marriage; he waspatient, and if he could not see why it was all arranged likethis, he told himself that he could not judge without knowing allabout it, and that most likely it must be so, and he tried not tofret.

　　In attending the elections, too, and taking part in them, hetried now not to judge, not to fall foul of them, but tocomprehend as fully as he could the question which was soearnestly and ardently absorbing honest and excellent men whom herespected. Since his marriage there had been revealed to Levinso many new and serious aspects of life that had previously,through his frivolous attitude to them, seemed of no importance,that in the question of the elections too he assumed and tried tofind some serious significance.

　　Sergey Ivanovitch explained to him the meaning and object of theproposed revolution at the elections. The marshal of theprovince in whose hands the law had placed the control of so manyimportant public functions--the guardianship of wards (the verydepartment which was giving Levin so much trouble just now), thedisposal of large sums subscribed by the nobility of theprovince, the high schools, female, male, and military, andpopular instruction on the new model, and finally, the districtcouncil--the marshal of the province, Snetkov, was a nobleman ofthe old school,--dissipating an immense fortune, a good-heartedman, honest after his own fashion, but utterly without anycomprehension of the needs of modern days. He always took, inevery question, the side of the nobility; he was positivelyantagonistic to the spread of popular education, and he succeededin giving a purely party character to the district council whichought by rights to be of such an immense importance. What wasneeded was to put in his place a fresh, capable, perfectly modernman, of contemporary ideas, and to frame their policy so as fromthe rights conferred upon the nobles, not as the nobility, but asan element of the district council, to extract all the powers ofself-government that could possibly be derived from them. In thewealthy Kashinsky province, which always took the lead of otherprovinces in everything, there was now such a preponderance offorces that this policy, once carried through properly there,might serve as a model for other provinces for all Russia. Andhence the whole question was of the greatest importance. It wasproposed to elect as marshal in place of Snetkov eitherSviazhsky, or, better still, Nevyedovsky, a former universityprofessor, a man of remarkable intelligence and a great friend ofSergey Ivanovitch.

　　The meeting was opened by the governor, who made a speech to thenobles, urging them to elect the public functionaries, not fromregard for persons, but for the service and welfare of theirfatherland, and hoping that the honorable nobility of theKashinsky province would, as at all former elections, hold theirduty as sacred, and vindicate the exalted confidence of themonarch.

　　When he had finished with his speech, the governor walked out ofthe hall, and the noblemen noisily and eagerly--some evenenthusiastically --followed him and thronged round him while heput on his fur coat and conversed amicably with the marshal ofthe province. Levin, anxious to see into everything and not tomiss anything, stood there too in the crowd, and heard thegovernor say: "Please tell Marya Ivanovna my wife is very sorryshe couldn't come to the Home." And thereupon the nobles in highgood-humor sorted out their fur coats and all drove off to thecathedral.

　　In the cathedral Levin, lifting his hand like the rest andrepeating the words of the archdeacon, swore with most terribleoaths to do all the governor had hoped they would do. Churchservices always affected Levin, and as he uttered the words "Ikiss the cross," and glanced round at the crowd of young and oldmen repeating the same, he felt touched.

　　On the second and third days there was business relating to thefinances of the nobility and the female high school, of noimportance 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 tookplace at the high table of the marshal of the province. And thenthere occurred the first skirmish between the new party and theold. The committee who had been deputed to verify the accountsreported to the meeting that all was in order. The marshal ofthe province got up, thanked the nobility for their confidence,and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud welcome, and shookhands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of SergeyIvanovitch's party said that he had heard that the committee hadnot verified the accounts, considering such a verification aninsult to the marshal of the province. One of the members of thecommittee incautiously admitted this. Then a small gentleman,very young-looking but very malignant, began to say that it wouldprobably be agreeable to the marshal of the province to give anaccount of his expenditures of the public moneys, and that themisplaced delicacy of the members of the committee was deprivinghim of this moral satisfaction. Then the members of thecommittee tried to withdraw their admission, and SergeyIvanovitch began to prove that they must logically admit eitherthat they had verified the accounts or that they had not, and hedeveloped this dilemma in detail. Sergey Ivanovitch was answeredby the spokesman of the opposite party. Then Sviazhsky spoke,and then the malignant gentleman again. The discussion lasted along time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised that theyshould dispute upon this subject so long, especially as, when heasked Sergey Ivanovitch whether he supposed that money had beenmisappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch answered:

　　"Oh, no! He's an honest man. But those old-fashioned methods ofpaternal family arrangements in the management of provincialaffairs must be broken down."

　　On the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals. Itwas rather a stormy day in several districts. In the Seleznevskydistrict Sviazhsky was elected unanimously without a ballot, andhe gave a dinner that evening.