Anna Karenina

he newly elected marshal and many of the successful party dined that
day with Vronsky.

Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he was bored in the
country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence, and also to
repay Sviazhsky by his support at the election for all the trouble he
had taken for Vronsky at the district council election, but chiefly in
order strictly to perform all those duties of a nobleman and landowner
which he had taken upon himself. But he had not in the least expected
that the election would so interest him, so keenly excite him, and that
he would be so good at this kind of thing. He was quite a new man in
the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success was
unmistakable, and he was not wrong in supposing that he had already
obtained a certain influence. This influence was due to his wealth and
reputation, the capital house in the town lent him by his old friend
Shirkov, who had a post in the department of finances and was director
of a flourishing bank in Kashin; the excellent cook Vronsky had brought
from the country, and his friendship with the governor, who was a
schoolfellow of Vronsky’s—a schoolfellow he had patronized and
protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was
his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the
majority of the noblemen reverse the current opinion of his supposed
haughtiness. He was himself conscious that, except that whimsical
gentleman married to Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, who had à propos de
bottes poured out a stream of irrelevant absurdities with such
spiteful fury, every nobleman with whom he had made acquaintance had
become his adherent. He saw clearly, and other people recognized it,
too, that he had done a great deal to secure the success of
Nevyedovsky. And now at his own table, celebrating Nevyedovsky’s
election, he was experiencing an agreeable sense of triumph over the
success of his candidate. The election itself had so fascinated him
that, if he could succeed in getting married during the next three
years, he began to think of standing himself—much as after winning a
race ridden by a jockey, he had longed to ride a race himself.

Today he was celebrating the success of his jockey. Vronsky sat at the
head of the table, on his right hand sat the young governor, a general
of high rank. To all the rest he was the chief man in the province, who
had solemnly opened the elections with his speech, and aroused a
feeling of respect and even of awe in many people, as Vronsky saw; to
Vronsky he was little Katka Maslov—that had been his nickname in the
Pages’ Corps—whom he felt to be shy and tried to mettre à son aise.
On the left hand sat Nevyedovsky with his youthful, stubborn, and
malignant face. With him Vronsky was simple and deferential.

Sviazhsky took his failure very light-heartedly. It was indeed no
failure in his eyes, as he said himself, turning, glass in hand, to
Nevyedovsky; they could not have found a better representative of the
new movement, which the nobility ought to follow. And so every honest
person, as he said, was on the side of today’s success and was
rejoicing over it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch was glad, too, that he was having a good time, and
that everyone was pleased. The episode of the elections served as a
good occasion for a capital dinner. Sviazhsky comically imitated the
tearful discourse of the marshal, and observed, addressing Nevyedovsky,
that his excellency would have to select another more complicated
method of auditing the accounts than tears. Another nobleman jocosely
described how footmen in stockings had been ordered for the marshal’s
ball, and how now they would have to be sent back unless the new
marshal would give a ball with footmen in stockings.

Continually during dinner they said of Nevyedovsky: “our marshal,” and
“your excellency.”

This was said with the same pleasure with which a bride is called
“Madame” and her husband’s name. Nevyedovsky affected to be not merely
indifferent but scornful of this appellation, but it was obvious that
he was highly delighted, and had to keep a curb on himself not to
betray the triumph which was unsuitable to their new liberal tone.

After dinner several telegrams were sent to people interested in the
result of the election. And Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was in high good
humor, sent Darya Alexandrovna a telegram: “Nevyedovsky elected by
twenty votes. Congratulations. Tell people.” He dictated it aloud,
saying: “We must let them share our rejoicing.” Darya Alexandrovna,
getting the message, simply sighed over the rouble wasted on it, and
understood that it was an after-dinner affair. She knew Stiva had a
weakness after dining for faire jouer le télégraphe.

Everything, together with the excellent dinner and the wine, not from
Russian merchants, but imported direct from abroad, was extremely
dignified, simple, and enjoyable. The party—some twenty—had been
selected by Sviazhsky from among the more active new liberals, all of
the same way of thinking, who were at the same time clever and well
bred. They drank, also half in jest, to the health of the new marshal
of the province, of the governor, of the bank director, and of “our
amiable host.”

Vronsky was satisfied. He had never expected to find so pleasant a tone
in the provinces.

Towards the end of dinner it was still more lively. The governor asked
Vronsky to come to a concert for the benefit of the Servians which his
wife, who was anxious to make his acquaintance, had been getting up.

“There’ll be a ball, and you’ll see the belle of the province. Worth
seeing, really.”

“Not in my line,” Vronsky answered. He liked that English phrase. But
he smiled, and promised to come.

Before they rose from the table, when all of them were smoking,
Vronsky’s valet went up to him with a letter on a tray.

“From Vozdvizhenskoe by special messenger,” he said with a significant
expression.

“Astonishing! how like he is to the deputy prosecutor Sventitsky,” said
one of the guests in French of the valet, while Vronsky, frowning, read
the letter.

The letter was from Anna. Before he read the letter, he knew its
contents. Expecting the elections to be over in five days, he had
promised to be back on Friday. Today was Saturday, and he knew that the
letter contained reproaches for not being back at the time fixed. The
letter he had sent the previous evening had probably not reached her
yet.

The letter was what he had expected, but the form of it was unexpected,
and particularly disagreeable to him. “Annie is very ill, the doctor
says it may be inflammation. I am losing my head all alone. Princess
Varvara is no help, but a hindrance. I expected you the day before
yesterday, and yesterday, and now I am sending to find out where you
are and what you are doing. I wanted to come myself, but thought better
of it, knowing you would dislike it. Send some answer, that I may know
what to do.”

The child ill, yet she had thought of coming herself. Their daughter
ill, and this hostile tone.

The innocent festivities over the election, and this gloomy, burdensome
love to which he had to return struck Vronsky by their contrast. But he
had to go, and by the first train that night he set off home.