Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 27
be converted, but could not make out what the point was, and retreating a few steps
from the speakers, he explained to Stepan Arkadyevitch his inability to understand
why the marshal of the province should be asked to stand.
“O sancta simplicitas!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and briefly and clearly he explained
it to Levin. If, as at previous elections, all the districts asked the marshal of
the province to stand, then he would be elected without a ballot. That must not be.
Now eight districts had agreed to call upon him: if two refused to do so, Snetkov
might decline to stand at all; and then the old party might choose another of their
party, which would throw them completely out in their reckoning. But if only one
district, Sviazhsky’s, did not call upon him to stand, Snetkov would let himself be
balloted for. They were even, some of them, going to vote for him, and purposely
to let him get a good many votes, so that the enemy might be thrown off the scent,
and when a candidate of the other side was put up, they too might give him some
votes. Levin understood to some extent, but not fully, and would have put a few
more questions, when suddenly everyone began talking and making a noise and
they moved towards the big room.
“What is it? eh? whom?” “No guarantee? whose? what?” “They won’t pass
him?” “No guarantee?” “They won’t let Flerov in?” “Eh, because of the charge
against him?” “Why, at this rate, they won’t admit anyone. It’s a swindle!” “The
law!” Levin heard exclamations on all sides, and he moved into the big room together
with the others, all hurrying somewhere and afraid of missing something.
Squeezed by the crowding noblemen, he drew near the high table where the marshal
of the province, Sviazhsky, and the other leaders were hotly disputing about
something.
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