Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 29
Chapter 29
THE narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refreshments, was full
of noblemen. The excitement grew more intense, and every face betrayed some
uneasiness. The excitement was specially keen for the leaders of each party, who
knew every detail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generals organizing
the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank and file before an engagement,
though they were getting ready for the fight, sought for other distractions in the interval.
Some were lunching, standing at the bar, or sitting at the table; others were
walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, and talking with friends
whom they had not seen for a long while.
Levin did not care to eat, and he was not smoking; he did not want to join his
own friends, that is Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky and the rest,
because Vronsky in his equerry’s uniform was standing with them in eager conversation.
Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day, and he had
studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. He went to the window and sat
down, scanning the groups, and listening to what was being said around him. He
felt depressed, especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious, and
interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man with mumbling lips wearing
a naval uniform, sitting beside him, had no interest in it and nothing to do.
“He’s such a blackguard! I have told him so, but it makes no difference. Only
think of it! He couldn’t collect it in three years!” he heard vigorously uttered by
a round-shouldered, short, country gentleman, who had pomaded hair hanging on
his embroidered collar, and new boots obviously put on for the occasion, with heels
that tapped energetically as he spoke. Casting a displeased glance at Levin, this
gentleman sharply turned his back.
“Yes, it’s a dirty business, there’s no denying,” a small gentleman assented in a
high voice.
Next, a whole crowd of country gentlemen, surrounding a stout general, hurriedly
came near Levin. These persons were unmistakably seeking a place where
they could talk without being overheard.
“How dare he say I had his breeches stolen! Pawned them for drink, I expect.
Damn the fellow, prince indeed! He’d better not say it, the beast!”
“But excuse me! They take their stand on the act,” was being said in another
group; “the wife must be registered as noble.”
“Oh, damn your acts! I speak from my heart. We’re all gentlemen, aren’t we?
Above suspicion.”
“Shall we go on, your excellency, fine champagne?”
Another group was following a nobleman, who was shouting something in a loud
voice; it was one of the three intoxicated gentlemen.
“I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let for a fair rent, for she can never save
a profit,” he heard a pleasant voice say. The speaker was a country gentleman with
gray whiskers, wearing the regimental uniform of an old general staff-officer. It
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